Food and strangers

One of the things that I realized about myself on this trip was that I'm not the most solitary individual. I hated not having anyone to eat with or go exploring with, with the exception of the first night I was pretty much on my own the whole time. There was a big mall right across the street from my hotel and I ended up eating most of my meals either at the mall food court or the various shops in and around the conference center. In any case, I finally decided to overcome my fear of eating out alone and went to the hotel restaurant on Tuesday night. It's a really upscale restaurant (good thing I'd saved so much on my food allowance by eating at the food court the rest of the week). Anyways, I dressed up a bit, asked for a table of one and enjoyed a luxury dining experience. You know it's a classy place when you get a pre-appetizer appetizer, and a post-dessert dessert. Anyways, I tried the halibut which was very good. (I'm starting to be more adventurous with seafood) and had a fabulous double chocolate cheesecake like dessert.
Throughout the week, I also got to see some of the interesting characters that you always get in the city. One fellow I saw while waiting for the bus was likely schizophrenic or or had some mental illness because he was having a very heated argument with his delusion. He kept at it all the way up the block too. I also saw a very prim looking lady pushing a stroller only to find that inside the stroller was her little long haired dog. Then of course there were these chess masters.