My only travel this week was a quick trip to NY/NJ. I was able to fly into Newark and drove to Mahwah where I stayed in a Sheraton. The hospital I was visiting was actually in NY and I drove the 3 miles there the next day.
I struggled with the logistics for this trip. Our meeting was at 10am and there was a flight into EWR (yes, I now talk in airport acronyms) that was supposed to land at 8am. It was only about an hour from the airport to the hospital, but I would need to deplane and pick up the car before I could get on the road. I also didn't know what the traffic situation would be at 8:30am between Newark and Suffern, NY. (Plus the flight left at 6:50am, which would have meant an early morning for me!) So I erred on the side of caution and arrived the night before.
I got into the hotel at 8pm. Had a quick dinner at the hotel bar (tilapia that was over sauteed spinach and topped with essentially salsa that they called "tapenade"). I tried to get together with some friends in the area for dinner but it turns out they were not around. It looks like I'll be going back on a regular basis so hopefully we'll be in the same place at the same time at some point! Working time in with friends to business travel is definitely one of the perks of this job! Other than that it was a pretty boring night.
We were scheduled to meet with folks at this hospital system between 10am to 12:30pm. I arrived at the hospital around 9:45 and drove around for 5 minutes or so looking for parking (there were approximately 3 rows of parking available) to no avail. I was stressing about being on time so I took my rental car to the $2 (!) valet parking. I was probably in the hospital by 9:52. Meanwhile my colleague took a red eye from LAX to JFK and was still driving! He arrived with seconds to spare.
The 2 1/2 hour meeting was designed for me to meet various folks at this system and for them to "vet" me to determine if I'm appropriate to do some analyst work for them over the next few months. That was shortened to about an hour and half and I was back on the road.
Back at EWR I returned my car, took the train to the terminal and was through security (behind a woman with a gallon sized bag of liquids) with seconds to spare before a conference call. I took 2 conference calls from the airport, grabbed some lunch, and hung out with my new friend.
Fortunately I was back in DC just before 5pm and was able to get into Georgetown from DCA by 5:30 and join my cousins, aunt and uncle for dinner! After dinner my cousin and I met some friends at bar to watch the election results come in (only in dc!). While I'm loving this job it can definitely have repercussions for one's social life so I'm always happy when I can successfully manage both my work and my life in one day.
