new york, new york {part 1}

did i go on one heck of an adventure! my friend turned co-worker, jules, had a show with one of our favorite customers {young life} and i got to go with her.  i mean if i can tell you a perfect job scenario...this is 100% it.  two really great friends sent to one of the most fun cities {NYC baby!} to 'work' {i promise we did} and have so much fun together selling to the organization that we love & do ministry with.  ay ay ay already!  whenever i'd catch up with ben he'd just say "you girls, you're on the biggest adventure."  and it was so true.


if you know us i'm sure you can imagine julie and i running all over the city in the windy cold, on subways, and trains and in and out of shops and restaurants {jules leading the way of course because i could get lost in my closet}.  if you're my mom you were probably afraid for me the whole time.

we flew into newark a day before our presentation to ensure that we'd be there in time in case of delays etc.  i had been in chicago for about an hour when the sun finally came up.  it was real early.  we got to newark around noon, picked up our bags, rental car and proceeded to *try* to make it to our hotel which was less than a mile from the airport.  you could see it from the airport.  but the stinkin' roads were ridiculous.  round and round we went, on ramp, off ramp, on ramp, last exit before toll, off ramp...it literally took us about 15 minutes to go our 1 mile.  this happened more than once.  after checking into the hotel we got the run down on the area from "nigel" {what i believe to be the fake name given to us by our concierge}.  after getting settled we headed to newark penn station, tried to park in a garage...everyone was parked on top of each other, we got confused and scared & gave our keys to a stranger who said "i'll take care of it."  thanks ishmael!


from newark penn we headed to new york penn {really you had to pick such similar names?} and then...we arrived!  nyc - here we are!  we tried to track down some original ny pizza but i'm pretty sure we got a knock off sbarro essentially.  we wandered and shopped.  h&m was a hit.  a 3 story hit.  we wandered some more.  made our way to times square which was unbelievably bright.  soooo bright.  we stopped at a booth selling discount theatre tickets.  it kind of seemed like a deal but after finding that the discounted ones were still between $60 & $130 we decided against it.  we rode the subway {...interesting?} to soho and wandered little italy.  a man who called himself 'the italian bear' while wearing a giant fur coat ushered us into his restaurant.  scary?  maybe.  but it was nice and the food was yummy.  after walking about 30 blocks we made our way back to penn station to come home for the night.  it had become bitterly cold and our dogs were barkin'.

for you project runway fans out there...

i think that it went well.  they invited us to eat dinner with them which was so kind and fun and then we were off again.  ps...pushing rolling racks full of clothes around a hotel makes you look silly and everyone judges you for bringing so much crap overnight.  i just wanted to tell everyone we passed "these aren't ours people" as they oogled.  i'm sure they were thinking..."how can two girls need so many brightly colored s/s tees?  who hangs all their t-shirts on rolling racks?"  embarrasing.  buuuuuuut, more embarrassing things can happen.  we wanted to celebrate with a dip in the hot tub {which turned out to be a warm tub} but i brought a bathing suit and no cover up and jules brought neither.  so she put on some of our least favorite garments from the show {including a youth medium tee and running shorts} and sadly both of us had on our fuzzy boots.  we looked ridiculous.  i just hoped that no one would know we were from ky.  that would just make it worse.  

we had planned originally to leave nj wednesday afternoon but we knew by tuesday morning that our flight had been cancelled due to the blizzard that was hammering chicago.  we were flying with american and sadly their two hubs are chi & dallas so we were really in a pickle to find that dallas was also covered in snow & ice & that it wasn't letting up.  not to mention that super bowl weekend was on its way so everything that wasn't canceled was booked & booked.  we slept in & then started our day...a really fun day.  i'll save that for part 2.

my camera died right about here...so i'm hoping jules will send me her shots soon.

tuesday was our big day.  the presentation.  i think we woke up late so we didn't get our continental breakfast.  i really wanted to eat a bundle of free waffles so that was disappointing, but i digress.  we loaded up all our things for our two hour drive through lots of snowy road and 3 different states.  we went to lake champion {my very first summer camp camp}.  we made it unscathed with just minutes
to spare before speaking.  we had hoped to be there sooner but you know what they say...