1/4/12: 1:32pm
Plane ride 1 of 3 for the trip down to Scarborough, Tobago is well underway! I hardly slept last night and was running on excitement all morning. We have no idea where we are right now but luckily I landed a window seat and have been admiring view from above, trying to guess where we are. There's been mostly snow on the ground which makes me even more excited for the 85 degree weather to come! We have a long layover in Newton, New Jersey and a couple of people from the group were talking about making a quick trip to New York city before our next flight during the 7.5 hour layover. Of course there's a risk of missing our next flight to Port of Spain...live every moment to the fullest, right?! ;)
1/4/12:10:10pm
Surprisingly, no doubts crossed my mind as I scribbled my name on the contract that basically stated that I'm responsible for making it to Tobago on my own if I miss the flight once leaving the airport; the only thing that was on my mind was NYC! Everything was going smoothly-we figured out the train route and purchased our tickets and within a half hour of un-boarding the plane, we were on our way. When we were about 15 minutes outside the city, the train came to an unscheduled stop...talk about being stressed out!! Every possible worst case scenario thought ran through my mind at that point (What if we miss our flight?! What was I going to tell my mom?!). But long story short, there was some technical difficulties at Penn Station and we were delayed on the tracks for a solid 30 minutes. As soon as the train started moving, all of our wide-eyed, stressed out facial expressions turned into smiles of relief knowing that we were a step closer to pulling this whole thing off. As cheesy and cliche as it sounds, it felt like a dream walking out of Madison Square Garden and onto the busy streets of New York. The delay spooked us so we were on a mission to head to Times Square, take in the splendor, snap a couple pictures, and then hustle back to the train that would take us back the the airport. For the most part, this task went smoothly but we were constantly distracted by all the lights, the crazy amount of people, and the surreal feeling that we were actually in Times Square. Other than just simply being in the big apple, seeing the New Year's Eve ball was my favorite part; what an incredible thought that less than a week ago, practically the whole world had their eyes glued to the television watching the ball drop at midnight to ring in the new year. We weaved our way back down the good 15 blocks back to the train station, still in a daze from all the sites of the city and somehow smoothly made it onto the correct train. As soon as we were all checked in and ready for the next flight to Port of Spain, (we even made it with 3 hours to spare!), we all had these big goofy grins on our faces because we actually managed to pull the whole thing off. The consequences would have been disappointing if we hadn't had made it back in time for the flight but by the end of our adventure, it made the whole evening even greater and was a sign that this next month in Tobago will be filled with even more experiences that will be equally, if not more, memorable and priceless. Next stop: Port of Spain!
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