It's Been Fun 2010-- Let's Start All Over Again!

I need you to know that I wrote that title without intentionally rhyming. I swear. But I love rhymes, so I'm not going to re-write the title to make it sound less like a Dr. Seuss book.

Well I'm not gonna lie, leaving Texas was hard. I was hoping and praying that my flight would get canceled so I could stay longer in the Great State. But then everyone else's flight got canceled and mine was good to go. Awesome. So I left Killeen and headed to Dallas where I found out my flight had been delayed three hours. SO not only was I having to go back to NYC against my will, I also had to hang out in the airport for awhile in a terminal with no Cinnabon.

(Sidenote: I know there were like thousands of people stranded in airports for DAYS, so I'm not ACTUALLY complaining.. just kind of!)

When I finally arrived at Newark, it was 2:00am. I waded through the piles of abandoned luggage and thankfully located my bag. I purchased my ticket for the train to NYC and headed on up. I arrived at the platform just as the train pulled away. The last train for the night. Excellent. So there I am, with my $12.50 train ticket in hand, two bags in tow, gazing out at the mounds of snow... thinking to myself, "Where did I move? Why am I here? Why is there so much snow? (And most importantly) WHY did I fly into Newark?!" So I snapped out of my self-pity moment, and headed with the crowd (AKA the three other people who happened to get flights that weren't canceled and thought they were clever by flying into Newark) and got into the taxi line. I knew it was going to be a ridiculous amount of money and I knew the driver was going to instantly hate me when I told him he was going to be taking me to Queens, but I didn't really have any other option at that point!! So I put my bags in the trunk and got in the first cab to have this conversation:

Cab Driver: "Ok, where you going?"

Me: "Queens-- Ridgewood/Glendale area?"

Cab Driver: "Queens okay.. oh NO NO!! I no go there! You have to leave cab"

Me: "What? You don't go to Queens? Why not?"

Cab Driver: "No Queens, I sorry, leave cab please!"

Keep in mind it's now 3:00am. I have to be at work at 9:00am. And I'm in New Jersey. Okay moving on...

So I get into another cab, this time leading with Ridgewood ("near Brooklyn") instead of Queens and we head on down the road. This is what I am seeing around me:

This picture doesn't really do it justice... but there was a LOT of snow. And I don't want to see any of you Yankees making comments about how you've seen more blah blah blah WHATEVER it was a LOT.

So we drive on. I'm of course leading him with my phone GPS because NO TAXIS have GPS systems. Am I wrong, or is the taxi industry THE target audience for the GPS? I don't know what went wrong there. But anyway, we're driving along and the driver is getting angrier and angrier the longer we keep driving and the more times I say "Yeah, it's just a bit further... yeah a few more blocks... we'll get there!" So we arrive to the end of my street and see that my road has not in fact been plowed, so I exit at the end of the street with my two bags and purse.

It is now 4:00am. I am in a snow drift. With suitcases. Literally attempting to roll the bags in 20 inches of SNOW. Some visuals of my street for you:

This is the street where I got dropped off...

And this is right outside of my door. I really took it as a WELCOME BACK, SARA! Well done for choosing to live in Queens, where no one cares to plow the roads.

So I went upstairs, collapsed, took a little three hour nap, and then I was up at 7:00am to meet my friends Audrey and Bart who were coming to stay with me for New Years! YAY! I met them at the subway stop, introduced them to the mound of snow that was my neighborhood, left them a map, and headed on to work!

I was feeling kind of crazy but I rewarded myself with some tea and a bagel and felt much better about the day. It was of course pointless for me to be at work because there were like three other people there and ZERO clients came in since none of the buses in Brooklyn were working! In fact, the majority of them were STUCK in the middle of roads in the snow. Once again I began to feel as though I work in a third-world country. Secrets revealed-- NYC is NOT so advanced!

As I walked to work, I was excited to see a little path that was forged in front of me that I could follow...

What you cannot see (and what I didn't see) ahead is that this little path ends abruptly which left me standing knee-high in the snow not knowing exactly how to navigate from there. So I naturally just walked on through, half supporting myself with an abandoned car and got snow ALL up in my boots. Luckily I was almost to my building where I proceeded to thaw out the rest of the way. And of course, enjoyed my bagel.

I was SO thankful to have Audrey and Bart here for the weekend!! We enjoyed some tasty Thai food, NYC cheesecake, went to a hilarious Improv show and enjoyed the fireworks in Central Park on New Years Eve!

Fireworks pictures are hard... but they were really cool and lasted like 20 minutes! I'm gonna pretend that the stupid state AND city tax I have to pay went directly to fund that fireworks show and not to pay whoever was sleeping instead of plowing the roads. Slash... note to NYC, perhaps next year we should look into shortening the fireworks show and purchase a few more snow plows? Just a thought...

Bart's a photographer so naturally he's not in any of the photos. Sorry, Bart! It was a lot of fun though and I'm so glad they were able to come!! They left on Saturday afternoon and I decided the best way for me to start the New Year was to alternate sleep with Netflix for the next 36 hours. And order a pizza for myself. No regrets.

I'm excited about 2011! I don't really like that it's an odd number or that 11 is prime, but I feel like it's gonna be a good year! Hopefully one of exciting adventures and continued growth and I'm sure no shortage of humbling experiences. I feel very blessed to be where I am and am excited to see how the Lord leads in this year to come!