A $500 Cab Ride to New York

The other night, I was supposed to go to New York on an 8:57 pm train, but when I got to the train station, it was a 2 hour delay.

I was supposed to keynote a large industry event at 8am the next morning with 150+ and, with this delay, I would not be getting into my hotel and to sleep until 3am. Not an option.

Plus, the Amtrak station at BWI (where I leave from) was going to close at 9:45pm so I had no place to even sit without going to the airport.

After discounting the idea of driving myself to NYC (too tired and too many things to do) and exploring the possibility of flying from BWI to Newark or La Guardia (no flights), I ended up negotiating with Nidal.

As a side note, Nidal is Palestinian and we had a great side conversation about the Middle East. At the end, he agreed with my point that it's the fault of the Arabs that the Israelis are so strong and the primary problems with Palestinian leadership are because of their corrupt leadership.

Ok, back to the story....bottom line, by 9:05 pm, I was in the back of cab heading up to NYC on I-95. We stopped once for bathroom/gas and I was at my hotel by 12:30am.

Fare plus tip $500. Graciously, my host picked up the tab. Yay!