New Jersey

Well I am back from New Jersey, where I travelled to for 3 days. I stayed in a town called Cherry Hill just outside of Philadelphia.
Getting my rental car was an interesting experience. The airport bus took me to the rental building and I was immediately helped. The girl said she had a newer Chevy Impala and reinforced how nice it was. I signed the paperwork and walked out to my car. Upon walking up to it, I immediately noticed a few dents in the side. I put my stuff in the trunk and when I opened up the front door, the front passenger seat was all dirty and looked as if someone had spilled coffee on it at some point. I took my hand and brushed the dirt off of it. I then walked around the car and found some other nicks and dents. When I was pulling out of the parking lot, I handed the guard my contract and mentioned to her all of the problems. With a face that would stop a tank, she looked at me, walked into her booth, wrote some stuff with her pen, then handed me the contract and raised the gate. Talk about cold? Whoa, I thought that this girl must REALLY have woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.
Only thing I felt was that people seem a little more rude from that part of the country. Our booth at the convention I was at was next to a guy who kept putting things on our booth table including a large cup of coffee that had it tipped-over it would have spilled all over OUR table cloth, forcing us to pay for it. With the other stuff, he would place things like books, clothing, etc on our table, say he would move it, then leave it without ever moving it.
Then while driving, I was amazed that there were not more cops around busting people for their speeding and wreckless driving. It was not just on the expressways either. On rural routes where the speed limit was 40 mph people flew past me doing at least 60!
I walked-up to check into my hotel room and was greeted by a young guy, maybe 22, who was well dressed. When I inquired about checking in, he mumbled something and I thought he said the check in desk was to the right. I walked 60 feet when I realized there was no other desk and went back to him. He rolled his eyes when I asked him to explain the check-in again and it was then in a loud and clear voice he said that check-in was not until 3:00pm. OK tough guy, relax, I just asked you to clarify yourself, not my fault that you do not know how to communicate effectively nor my fault that you have no patience.
During the convention, convention attendees would either not acknowledge me with a look or they would look for 2 seconds at our booth, then quickly scamper away, harldy enough time to hand them a brochure or quickly explain our company to them. Why are they walking around looking at the vendors if they don't have the time to talk to them?
I can't say that my entire experience was bad. I belong to a spiritual group with national meetings and had the opportunity to stop-by a meeting for two hours Friday night. The people there were very welcoming and made me feel like part of the group. When the meeting was over, they even invited me to go out with them for some coffee and if it wasn't already 10:45pm and I didn't have to get-up early the next day I would have gone out with them.
The weather, at least compared to Chicago, was beautiful! It was in the mid 50s, lower 60s and they were breaking records for highs on one of the two days I was there. There were a few clouds, but Friday and Saturday the sun came out and it was great. I didn't even need the spring coat I brought it was that nice.
I was at the airport 3 hours early and tried to get on the earlier flight, but was informed that I would have to pay Southwest $75 to get on that flight (that got in 3 hours earlier than my scheduled flight). So I chose to take it easy for 3 hours. I took my time eating lunch, then spent an hour and a half entering all of our new contacts from our Texas trip AND this trip into our database. This was work I would have had to do during the week this week, but now that it is done I can focus on other things. Yes, it would have been nice to be home sooner, but it didn't happen, so make lemonade out of lemons.
I probable wouldn't spend too much time in New Jersey per say, but looking at Philadelphia and talking to my wife who was there once, I would spend more time in that town. It was cool the way the city was layed-out and was a big city, but not a towering metropolis. The airport was easy to navigate around and city has a nice river and port area where large ships are worked on in the shipyard.