A Quiet Week. . . OR QUITE a Week . . . :)

In the past week, I've been :

1. on an airplane (with my 'not-so-very-nice thoughts' toward those people who bring carry-on luggage that is WAY too big to fit in the overhead bin)
2. ridden in a 15- passenger van (whose driver was in a REALLY big hurry!!)
3. in a taxi cab (whose driver was in an even bigger hurry and drove with the windows down for some odd reason)
4. on 4 different train trips (with my newfound friends!)
5. crammed in a mini van taxi with 10 other people (how long has it been since you said 'How many people can we get in a . . . . ? This was for a 5-minute/$30 ride to the hotel after midnight, and when we asked the driver how much to take us to China Town - ~1.5 hour ride - the next night, he cracked up and said NO WAY!! Go figure!!)
6. on the subway (VERY scary - not to mention dirty, smelly AND frightening)
7. in a limo with 11 other people (EVEN scarier - I seriously doubted the wisdom of this decision but it's a loooong story!!)
8. on top of the Empire State Building (AWESOME - thanks Katie for being our tour guide!)
9. to Italy (Little that is. . . and had the most awesome Chicken Marsala for dinner - REAL Itlalian food - quite possibly "THE best thing I ever ate" and I took a picture so that David could see it!!!)
10. almost to China (Town that is . . . I chose NOT to go the additional 2-3 blocks just to buy a cheap 'knockoff' Coach bag from a trailer down a dark alley)

Many of these antics happened after spending most of the day safely 'otherwise engaged' at the Adecco Training Center!! It was a great week that I'll never forget, spent with some awesome and incredible people who were total strangers on Tuesday afternoon, but who turned out to be great friends!!!

On Wednesday evening, I told the group that I'd like to split off from them and have dinner with Kate who lives in NY, and had agreed to get me back to the train station and safely on the right train. These 'total-strangers-turned-friends' informed me - NO WAY are we leaving you. We came together, we leave together!!! I was secretly very glad, because the experience later that evening of 10 people trying to find the right train 'home' was quite intimidating and the hour-long ride back to Long Island (and the taxi-ride to the hotel) would have been a.) VERY scary; b.) VERY scary; and c.) VERY scary without my friends!!