A whirlwind

As a part of my rotation here to the UK with my firm, I'm encouraged to take a one-week networking trip back to the States, to spend time with others from the office and/or to participate in training.

Two weekends ago, I left for this trip -- I was in NYC Saturday afternoon through Tuesday evening, DC through Friday evening, and then Harrisburg with the family for the day on Saturday.

New York was great -- I caught up with Kai, Leon, Sam, Brice, and a whole group of others on Saturday night. Sunday, Greg met me for brunch... we didn't have anything in particular planned, but ended up finding an absolutely amazing Polish restaurant. It was about 55 degrees and sunny, so when we saw the sign for the beer garden and the other sign that they were serving breakfast, we figured we had to give it a try. After a kielbasa omelette and raspberry pancakes, we just spent some time there, catching up. After a few hours, we had to continue through their menu and try the pierogies (incredible!) and some Polish beers. A great find!

I also met up with Matt, Michelle, and others while there, but still felt like I had too little time. Whereas I'd hoped to spend some of the time during the day Monday and Tuesday in our office, I ended up spending 12+ hours each day in the client's offices. It was useful to be there rather than in London that week, but not quite what I'd intended.

The second half of the week was at a conference, training session, and exam in DC. I spent some time with colleagues from our DC-based privacy practice at the conference, and also got to catch up with Ros, Al and Dave. In trying to convince Ros and Al to come over here, I got them to look at flights, and we're now going to be meeting next weekend in Paris!

After an exam that ended at 7pm Friday, I drove up to the parents place in Mechanicsburg, for just over 24 hours there. Saturday was a bunch of errands, and I also met up with Jared, Andy and Bill to get fitted for our tuxes for Jared's wedding this summer. That night, my parents invited the grandparents over to join us for dinner and we had steaks from the grill... something I definitely miss over here!

In all, it was a great trip and amazing to catch up with a few friends. It was exhausting, though, as I feel that it should have taken at least two weeks to fit in everything that I did during that one.