This Time Last Week (Day 7 Going Home Edition)

This time last week I had to get up super early because I had a car picking me up (6:45am) to take me to Penn Station. I was going home.

The whole week was fantastic and I couldn’t have wished for a better week. Well actually it would have been nice had the weather cooperated more. (The first part of the week was raining)

This time I really stepped out of my comfort zone in so many ways. First was rooming with three bloggers I have never met in real life Kate from Midnight Book Girl , Kellie from ReaWrite and  Kim from On The Wings of Books . OMG all I have to say is from that first night I knew it was going to be a hilarious adventure with them. One that I will always remember. I don’t think I have laughed so much or so hard in a long time. (Kate and Kim you know what I’m talking about LOL)

The second was walking all over NYC….alone. I was nervous at first but quickly realized if you don’t make eye contact or say anything its all good. I always made sure before going out that I had my print outs and the staff at the hotel were always there to offer directions. I have yet to take the subway on my own and quite honestly I don’t think I am ready for that. Its just to darn complicated.

This is NYC subway map

Montreal’s subway map

Perhaps one day I will feel confident to ride the subway on my own but for now I am okay with walking around NYC or going with other people.

In a way I was happy to be coming home because I think by Thursday I was getting over whelmed with the amount of foot traffic there is in NYC and the horns and sirens etc. I live in a subdivision in Montreal and its never that noisy here. I was also sad to be leaving I had made some amazing friends and I enjoy NYC.

Thankfully Tina from Bookshipper was going to be traveling home with me. We had text that night before so she was waiting for me at the train station. We were able to get a red cap (porter) to bring our bags down for us and he was super nice to get us pre-boarding. Which honestly is a life saver when traveling.

The train ride was pretty uneventful until we got to the border. For some reason its always longer to pass through customs coming into Canada then it is going into the US. A handful of people were removed from the train and you could see from the clipboard that a few names were highlighed. Thankfully Tina and I weren’t interrogated.

Then the fun started once we got into Montreal because they only had one porter and an elderly couple had tons of baggage and we kind of joked with them asking if they were moving here and they brushed us off. Seriously they had more baggage then Tina and I put together. (Tina had two suitcases and I had two suitcases and three tote bags). So Tina and I were left down stairs until the porter came back. Thankfully he did.

It was nice to come home although we didn’t hang around too long downtown because there was a student protest that was going to begin very shortly and we didn’t want to be mixed into that.
So that it is. Its always so much fun to get away and I love NYC but its always nice to come home again. Although its always one of those things were  you need a vacation to get over a vacation and that was me last week. I had a hard time re-entering back into reality. Michael being sick didn’t help much.

I hope you enjoyed my BEA and NYC recaps.