New York

Have I mentioned how much I love NYC? I was lucky enough to have business meetings this week at our offices there. Even better I was lucky enough to travel with some good friends. We took the Saturday night shut-eye flight from SLC to JFK.

Always the optimists we hoped for early check in at our Chelsea hotel -- Not going to happen as they were sold out. We stowed our bags and headed for early breakfast. The diner we went to was fine -- nothing flashy -- it wasn't even 7 yet so we were limited on choices. We sat there for almost two hours before heading out to find something to do.

John suggested the High Line -- It is an above ground park that is built on elevated train tracks/platforms for the meatpacking district in the 1930's. Over the past two years it has been converted to a nine block above ground park rather than torn down. You could see the Statue of Liberty, Chelsea pier, the Hudson River where they docked the Miracle on the Hudson and a zillion other little things -- I'm into small details and found many.

There were several highlights of our walk -- the first being I fell asleep (along with Joy) on one of the wooden lounge chairs -- John and Amalys snapped some photos. I don't have a copy of them right now but I was sacked out. The next highlight was that I found Saskatoon bushes with ripe berries -- Yes, much to everyone’s horror I began picking and eating the berries. You can take the girl out of the prairie but you can't take the prairie out of the girl (something like that). I have not had Saskatoon’s in years and they tasted so good. Most of my traveling companions declined to taste the berries (chickens). My theory -- it left more berries for me.

Next we headed to Starbucks to have ten-zies (food again). I love their Vivanno's! While resting there (they had a/c) I noticed that Chelsea Market was just across the street. I was so excited! For those of you who don't know that is home to The Food network! We went over and looked in the shops, went to a sample sale, had eleven-zies (French croissant), looked at odd photos of men with mustaches -- it was great!

We headed back to the hotel to see if there were any rooms open yet -- No such luck. We re-grouped and headed to the subway and two stops and past an assortment of stores (holy cow) later we were at this cute little Spanish restaurant. Their food was to die for! We ate and ate -- after all it was 1230 by now. I had never had saffron rice before.

At that point it was time for my friends to head to their afternoon Broadway play and all I wanted was a bed. I managed to get back to the hotel without getting lost and checked in. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I woke up nearly six hours later, took a shower and found a BBQ place right down the street. It was great! I had some prep work to do before the meetings in the morning, called Charles and the kids, Dr. Durham -- got to love it when you have to call the pedi from NYC and went back to sleep.

Today I didn't think about my calendar being in mountain time vs eastern and ended up at the office two hours before the first meeting. It gave me time to get a few other things done. It was great to see everyone here. I miss working with revenue management daily etc.

Tonight we went and had the best Indian food I've ever had. It was this cute little hole in the wall place close to our hotel. Joy is part Indian and could tell us what everything was -- she was so excited. Amalys was kind enough to drink my wine that came with dinner too :) . After, all I wanted to do was sleep as we have a full day tomorrow -- A meeting followed by the flight home.