My evening with Mitt

I realized I never blogged about this and if I don't do it now it probably won't happen. Below is the email I sent my family...

What a fun event. It was held on the 80th floor penthouse in the residence side of the Mandarin Oriental hotel. For those of you familiar, it's located in Columbus Circle, that little area right on the south west corner of Central Park. There's the huge round-about and it's 9 blocks south of where I live. There's two really tall buildings that look exactly alike. We were at the top floor of the north building.

I don't think in all my life I'll be in a more expensive apartment. It was incredible. I tried to find details online but couldn't find anything I knew for sure was specific to this apartment. I read somewhere an apartment like it in the building recently sold for $30,000,000 and the square footage is 12,500.

To say it was incredible would be an understantment. I didn't have time to see the whole place but saw the kitchen which I would say is about 2-3 times the size of Mom and Dad's, if that gives you an idea. The place was basically all floor to cieling windows, and had a complete 360 view of Manhattan. I'm including a picture I took with my phone of the view of the park. I was standing in the living room where Mitt spoke. Oh yeah, the elevators opened up into the apartment also. That's something I've always thought was so cool when I'd see it on tv but I've never seen in real life.

There were about 75 people there and they were all very old-money, Republican types. Everyone was dressed so nicely, huge diamond rings, and tightly botoxed faces. The entrance fee was $2,500. When I went to work that day I was thinking I looked so cute but I think it was pretty clear I knew someone at the event to get in. (I didn't get invited until midday, otherwise I would have dressed nicer.)

The event lasted about an hour. Mitt spoke probably 20 minutes or so, and took questions for 10-15 minutes. It's crazy to see people in real life. Like most people I'm only used to seeing on tv, he was shorter than I expected, and looked older. That being said, he's still a handsome man.
It was neat to hear him speak when he knew he was in a group of Republicans and didn't have to try to be diplomatic. He didn't say anything new or groundbreaking, but he was funny and I found myself laughing out loud a handful of times.

I was lucky enough to be able to meet him and shake his hand. I was more nervous than I'd anticipated. I kept thinking I was going to accidently call him President Obama. Thankfully I just introduced myself and called him Mr. Governor and thanked him for what he was doing. And then we got our photo. It's not the best. We've been having a heat wave and the apartment was actually pretty warm as well. I felt bad for the men in suits.

Shortly after my friends and I needed to head out. We were standing and waiting for the lobby and wouldn't you know it, Mitt and his entourage show up and share the elevator with us. He held the door and let all us ladies out first. I just kept thinking to myself, "What if one day I can say I rode the elevator with the president?"

Anyway, it was a really fun night and I felt super giddy to be there.
I didn't intend for this to be so long but you all know by now how I ramble.

I've included the pic with Mitt, the pic of the view, and a pretty bad pic of Mitt with John Whitehead. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know who he was at the time. For anyone else naive like me, he served as the Deputy Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, was a chairman of Goldman Sachs, and the Chairman of the Board of the NY Fed. He'll be 90 years old next year which was shocking to me. He looks great. Someone affiliated with the Jets was there as well, and spoke with us for a minute, but now I can't remember his name! It wasn't Woody Johnson but I guess he does go to some Mitt events.