Day One

When your employer isn’t paying moving expenses and you are as cheap as we are, you skip the moving companies and try to ship all your stuff via air…as your check-in luggage.

Honestly, it wasn’t that much of a pain. On Monday morning we packed our 4-16×18x18 boxes into the town car along with our backpacks and carry-on luggage and hauled it all to the airport. This was only the second time I’ve ever used the outdoor bag check and it was well worth an extra $12 to get rid of those boxes ASAP. Most of our boxes were around 40lbs and under the 50lb weight limit, but there was one that rung up at 52 lbs. The porter was nice enough to blink at the weight and not charge us the extra $85, thankfully.I fly almost every week and I rarely check baggage so I think they should let me take more, but apparently no carrier is offering rollover baggage…

On our first trip to NY, we brought 4 50lb boxes as well and every one of them was opened by TSA. This time, none were opened. Who knows how they decide to open what, but I’m guessing that had memories of trying to repack our previous baggage and decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to go through our shower curtains and extra clothing this time.

After a 45 minute wait for a mini-van taxi (surprisingly hard to find at Newark airport while they are everywhere in NY state) we made our way to our friend Seno’s to drop off our boxes and then check-in at the W Times Square, where I had actually found a good rate.
We hoped on the elevator to our 53rd floor room and ya know, I was a little excited to actually be taking K to a nice hotel for a change. Normally we stay in pretty low key/cheap places, but the W Times Sq is actually really nice. A little bit of excitement was lost when we walked into a room full of dehumidifiers. Apparently, somebody had flooded our room before us. 10 minutes later we were in a room on the 26th floor, but at least it was still nice, though like most hotel rooms, had many problems. The heater didn’t work and neither did the wireless phone. uh. A man came up to repair it all but it is still a little lame.

Too tired to go far for dinner, we went to the hotel restaurant Blue Fin Seafood, which is basically an overpriced sushi bar slash seafood restaurant. It wasn’t bad but the service was weird and the price was ridiculous (though fitting for Times Sq, sadly) and so ended our first night in NYC. 364 more to come!