Back when my dad’s mom was still alive, we’d celebrate #Thanksgiving on Manhattan. We lived in Boston then DC then, so would always take the train in on the day of.

The trick was to time your train so that you’d arrive at Penn Station in the brief period between when the parade had already passed by, but they hadn’t yet reopened the roads, so you could walk calmly down the middle of a surrealy empty Manhattan street with your suitcase.

The other trick was to bite the bullet and buy the more expensive Acela tickets. The Acela was usually empty due to the lack of business travel, while the regional train was an absolute clusterfuck of inexperienced train riders and their families, none of whom are capable of distinguishing between ‘New York’ and ‘Newark’, when spoken in a New Jersey accent over a train PA system.

The most important trick was to end the night at Terra Blues, down on Bleeker, where they always hold a Jimi Hendrix birthday bash with some amazing bands playing #Hendrix covers.