Eating and partying

It's nice to be home.

The storms that swept through the northeast yesterday delayed me, and made the last 80 miles or so of the trip a grueling challenge, so I haven't gotten re-organized yet.  The notes are still in the suitcase.

In talking with Abbey, a few interesting non-political aspects of the convention experience came up.

I had heard about the non-stop partying that goes on at conventions, and I was curious to see whether that was true.  Not so I could attend; for me, a party is a noisy place where you wander around for a while not being able to hear anybody, and then you leave.  But - is this true at all?  Is party networking the whole point of conventions?

Not that I could determine.  Or maybe it is, for the cognoscenti, but not for the average delegate. I received notice of two parties, the reception I wrote about on the first night, and another one on Wednesday night, hosted by the mid-Atlantic state delegations, after the general session.  "After the general session" on Wednesday meant after 1AM, as that was the night of the roll call vote.  No thanks.

So - I'm sure there were other get-togethers, but I didn't hear about them, before or after.  Evenings were pretty full.

When I arrived in Charlotte, I had no idea of where I would eat throughout the week.  However, I had heard enough about the endless food and drink at conventions that I thought I 'd try to get through the week without paying for any meal.  It worked, but not really well.

My hotel had a hot breakfast, so that was a start.  As it turned out, there was a sit-down, good-china breakfast each day in that tent I described earlier, at another of the NY delegation hotels.  So far so good.  There was a hospitality room at that same hotel, with hot food and drink all afternoon and evening.  But that didn't help much, because I was at the caucuses and general sessions in the afternoon and evenings.

So lunch/dinner resembled our family's traditional traveling lunches:  a bagel or two wrapped up from breakfast, stashed in the backpack.  There weren't many places to get something to eat in downtown Charlotte; in 'the bubble,' where vehicles were prohibited, many stores and restaurants were closed.  There was a small food court in the Convention Center, and that was it.  Where did everyone else eat?

More soon, I promise.