Last week was the longest I’ve ever spent in New York City. It was my first visit to the city in six years and I would be okay if I didn’t return for another decade or more. The way my life and business is trending, I don’t expect that to be the case but alas. Working out of a small hotel room that exceeds a dollar per square foot per night is not exactly my dream remote work arrangement. And while coffee shops and open coworking spaces function well for some, we can’t have client calls in such surrounds. That chained me to within a certain distance of the hotel and so forced me to stay in Midtown for most of the trip.

Walking up and down Fifth and Madison Avenues was more jarring than I expected. It is early November, so a few of the stores already had their Christmas decorations on display and the public ice rinks were set up at Bryant Park and Rockefeller Center. And it was 70 degrees every afternoon. The juxtaposition felt off.

I got a glimpse into life in a Brooklyn brownstone too on this trip. That was the one area I went where the noise wasn’t constant. Brooklyn is also (for now) built more on a human scale so that the buildings don’t smother you. Brooklyn has lots of other things that would make it a frustrating place to live, too, but at least this time I was able to do more than aimlessly walk around after choosing a subway stop to exit like I did on my previous visit to the borough. In any event, score a point for local knowledge.

Food is very important to me and often my travel schedule is constructed around meals. When I chose restaurants on this trip, there was a clear bifurcation. If I chose an old-school Jewish deli, then I had a very good pastrami sandwich and a mix of very good and not-so-good pickles. If I chose anything else, the food was mediocre at best. When a client or friend chose the restaurant, the food was great and the atmosphere matched. They were four for four in that regard and all very different—oyster bar; tapas; Mediterranean; Asian fusion. Score a few more points for local knowledge. Not that I needed to relearn the lesson that going with a local makes travel better, but there were several reiterations of that lesson over the past week.