I was still sitting hunched and bleary-eyed over my coffee this morning when I received this e-mail from Matt McGowan, the VP of Marketing at Incisive Media:
“Congratulations! You were the lucky winner of the ClickZ Blog Raffle for the Web Metrics forum in NYC this Wednesday, May 2nd.”
Honestly, I entered the raffle with no real hope of winning. I spent 10 years living in Nevada and plenty of time in casinos, and I know from experience that I’m not a particularly lucky person. And even if I did win, I had no real hope of attending. I work for a small business with a limited budget, and the idea of jetting off to New York at a moment’s notice was unthinkable.
At least, until today.
In my mind, I was already composing my “sorry, but” e-mail to Mr. McGowan, but I thought, “What the hell? I’ll at least check out some prices.” So I jumped on Travelocity to look for flights and hotels, which turned out to be far, far cheaper than I expected. Then I fired off an e-mail to my boss and waited for the inevitable “no”.
Twelve hours later and here I am, with a free conference pass and a plane ticket to New York. I leave tomorrow afternoon, and I’m so excited I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve never been to New York, and I’ve never been to an SEO-related conference, and now I get to do both all at once.
My only regret is that I won’t have much time to sight-see while I’m there. The conference is being held at the Hilton New York in Manhattan, right next door to the Museum of Modern Art and not too far from Central Park and Radio City Music Hall, so I’ll definitely see a few points of interest.
Any suggestions from readers in NYC or people who are familiar with the area?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I live about 20 minutes outside Manhattan in Northern NJ and I was just in there at the Hilton for SES a few weeks ago. It’s pretty close to Times Square and if you’re looking for amazing food, I definitely recommend Brazil Grill. It’s walking distance from the Hilton, and if you like meat, you want to ask for the downstairs buffet. Incredible. Also try the chocolate cake and the coffee. OMG the coffee. Ok I have to stop now.
Congratulations on going to NY. NY is a great city. Check out as many tourist places as you can but make sure that you get some time to just walk around on your own and sort of get a feel for the city vibe. NY is definitely one of my favourite cities.
I would definitely recommend attend a Broadway show, if you are into that sort of stuff. My favorite of all times is Phatom of the Opera of course