A year ago today I was on my way to New York!

It is hard to believe, but a year ago I was on my way to New York City to kick off my Egypt / Jordan vacation adventure. 

We left Reno early in the morning on 11/20/2010.  I was so excited!  Our goal was to head to New York City and stay for a few days before we left for Egypt and Jordan.  On my way to the airport I picked up my friend Jason who was my vacation buddy / roommate.  Jason has been my friend since I was a Freshman in High School.  He is also my best friend’s older brother and one of the funniest guys I know.  There were ten of us traveling together on this vacation, me, Jason (Bridget's Brother), Bridget (my best friend), Andy (Bridget's Husband), Chris and Ron (Bridget's Folks) Rob and Shayna (our friends),  and Libby and Jeff (Rob's Folks).  As time goes by and I have gotten older I haven’t been able to spend as much time as I would like with my friends, so I was really excited to go on vacation with them and spend some quality time together. 

I am not sure Jason was as excited to spend quality time together as I was, especially at 5am on our departure day.  I had forgotten how Jason wasn’t really a morning person.  In high school when he picked me up for school sometimes he barely greeted me when I got in the car because he wasn’t a morning person.  This day refreshed my memory so I tried to give him time to warm up for the day, which was challenging for me since I am always excited to see my friends no matter what time of day it is.  My brother and I picked Jason up at 5am to head to the airport.  He was out front waiting for us and ready to get this vacation started but he wasn’t really smiling at 5am when we arrived. 

Things went pretty well at the airport as far as I can remember.  We met the rest of our friends at the front counter and didn’t have any problems checking our bags.  TSA didn’t frisk me or make me go through the naked scan line so I was pretty happy about that. 

We arrived in New York after a quick stop in Texas and a long day of travel.  When we got to New York I was a little overwhelmed for about five seconds, then I was in love with the place. 

New York was simply amazing to me.  I liked the people and the diversity of culture, experiences, and opportunities.  I felt like New York City was this amazing place where anything could happen, you could accomplish dreams and conquer the world, or you could lose everything.  The city was like nothing I had ever seen or experienced and I absolutely loved being there.  The excitement and the natural buzz of energy that makes New York great inspired me.

Diamond Club - Happy Hour!
Ron, Andy, Rob, Shayna, Me, Bridget, Chris and Jason

After we arrived in New York we checked into our hotel.  To save money we squished four of us into a room made for two.  It was cozy but we are all good enough friends that it wasn’t a problem to share a room with four of us. 

Because our friend Jason travels for work so much he is a member of the Hilton Honors Diamond Club.  Traveling for work all the time probably sucks, but being a Diamond Club member is awesome!  Because of Jason being such a frequent traveler we got all the benefits of the Diamond Club, including using some of his points to save us money on the hotel room.  Jason is the best vacation buddy ever!  But the best benefit from the Diamond Club was the happy hour with free drinks we received every night of our stay.  Free drinks in New York are hard to come by, hell affordable drinks in New York were rarely seen on this trip.  So we thoroughly enjoyed our Diamond Club benefit of free happy hour drinks every night we were there.  Jason was our MVP!

After happy hour at our hotel we decided to go explore the city a bit and have dinner.  We walked by Ground Zero for the first time which was still under construction.  We walked around the city and we found a nice Italian restaurant.

After a great dinner we walked around more and then headed back to the hotel to call it a night. 

I was so tired, but so excited to be in New York City!