Highlights of My New York Trip in Bullet Points

• I fulfilled a longtime dream: I saw works of Monet and Van Gogh and other artists I've long admired and whose work I've pored over in books. I went to the Metropolitan Museum with my boss and to the Museum of Modern Art with my current awesome boss and the Museum of Modern Art with an old boss I'm still friends with. 
• I watched Danielle Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway. This was my boss's gift to me, and what better gift than a fantastic new experience? (And Radcliffe is amazing.)
• I walked around Times Square (several times, actually, since our hotel was right on Times Square!) and sat at a cafe there (but I've said that already).
• I ate new things at almost every meal, had food I'd heard of but never eaten, and finally discovered a taste for wine. I ate food on the street, casual restaurants, swanky restaurants... yet each time, I had the best time not merely because the food was awesome, but because I had great conversations with a friend I don't get to meet often.
• I looked around like a country bumpkin, looking up at the skyscrapers, peeking out of cabs to look at the big brand stores. 
• I behaved like a kid in a candy store when we went to TJ Maxx!
• The weather was awesome. It was cool and breezy and invigorating. I often went out without my coat and while my hands got cold, I felt more alive rather than like I was going to be sick. 
• The people. Oh, I can't get over how polite and friendly everyone is. If I bumped into someone, they'd say "sorry" before I did! Except for a store cashier who wasn't impressed at my cluelessness (not that he was actually rude), everyone was so amazingly nice. (And I heard New Yorkers were rude! I can't imagine how nice they are elsewhere in the country.)
• The traffic! Sunday, the streets were relatively empty and you could count the number of cars on the road. The rest of the week, of course, was very different. But there was barely any honking, and cars would stop at traffic lights with so much space between them that an Indian biker would easily creep in between. (Again, I had heard bad things about New York traffic, especially cabs: an Indian taxi driver would be disgusted at their wimpiness.)

Coming up: a detailed narrative of my last day in NYC.