1. The Yglesias Method still works. The ratio of people who use the stupid, default method — the one I used from the first time I ever rode Amtrak out of Penn Station until approximately Thanksgiving of 2013 — to those who use the Yglesias Method must be on the order of 100 to 1.
2. With the lead time that you have over the unwashed masses, you can get yourself to the quiet car. Amtrak happily tells you where to find the quiet car. On the Northeast Regional, it’s “adjacent to the business class car”. The only difficulty is knowing where, exactly, the business-class car is. Today the business-class car was the frontmost car; I assume that that’s normally the case when taking the train from Penn to South Station. Though you can always ask a conductor.
3. No trip to New York is complete, for me, without grabbing a dozen bagels at Absolute Bagels on the Upper West Side. Perhaps one day soon Bagelsaurus will deliver unto Cambridge the bagels which were foretold in scripture.
4. It’s really incredibly awesome that I can travel from the Upper West Side to Cambridge via walk-subway-train-subway-walk. I never want to live in a place where I need to own a car to make a similar journey. And I never want to take for granted that, despite its problems, the MBTA is better than what 90% of the United States has available.
5. Momomfuku’s vegetarian ramen didn’t live up to the billing. The veggie ramen at Chuko is the original and still champion.
6. To all my New York friends whom I neglected to see this time around: I’m sorry! I’ll see you soon.