Friday my new job sent me to New York to cover a concert in Brooklyn. They put me on the fancy all business class train from Union Station in DC to Penn Station in NYC. The train was not as luxurious as you would expect, slightly larger seats, but no food service. The Feature Story News office in New York is in the UN building, so my first stop was the credentials office. One of the guys from my office had already started filling out the form, so it didn't take long to get my badge.

The media offices at the UN (at least the ones I saw) were packed into a small area behind the womans bathroom, which looks like it was designed for storage. I met the South African Broadcasting corespondent, with whom I was working on the story, and we caught a cab to Brooklyn.

The first guy to perform didn't allow any media coverage whatsoever. All of the cameras had to be turned away from the stage. I heard he even tried to ban cell phone cameras in the audience. It didn't matter though, because we were there to cover the main performance. It was a huge production, consisting of a 100 piece choir, a string section, 4 opera singers and a video instillation. The concert set music to the words of Apartheid survivors. It was great, and I wish I could have stayed longer.

After the concert, we immediately returned to the office to edit the video and upload it to the news station in South Africa. I finished around 3:00 am. The company owns an apartment in lower Manhattan. I took a cab downtown and easily found the building. Unfortunately, when I tried my key in the lock, it didn't work. I called everyone I could in the office, but no one answered. I spent the next few hours walking all across Manhattan, through Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Times Square, and up to Rockefeller Center. Finally at 7:00 am, I got a call from someone at work. When I got the information about the apartment, I thought the note said apartment 5D, but it was actually 5P. I took the subway back downtown and fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up a few hours later and met Kat for lunch at the first pizzeria in the country, before catching the train back home.