Today's the big day! In less than four hours we are heading to the Newark airport to meet Greg's new co-workers and embark on a 17 hour plane ride to Mumbai. Ted and Brooke gave us a good Hoboken/NYC send off over the past couple of days. The theme was acclimatizing to the city life. We spent Sunday at Coney Island, enjoying the beach (slightly dirty and great people watching). It's the last time for awhile that that much of my body will be seeing sunlight since I'll have to dress more conservatively. We also hit the Cyclone, an old wooden roller coaster that does a great job giving occupants whip lash, and a round of Skeeball, which won us plenty of tickets. We each chose a "sick" temporary tatoo and gave a very excited little girl the rest of our tickets. In the evening we spent time with Doris and John in Brooklyn. Doris continued our celebrating with a game of beer pong on a regulation table (didn't know those existed), dinner and a trip to the Barcade (a bar with all the old Atari videogames - very cool). How could this type of fun continue?! Well, continue it did. We spent Monday hanging out with Seema in Central Park and lunch near Union Square. Our lunch spot was a great place called the Grey dog with excellent sandwiches and microbrews. Monday night we saw Hoboken in style at the Italian Festival at St. Ann's. The Italian Catholics really know how to live it up. After some delicious sausage and eggplant Hero's, we put in our tickets for the 50/50 raffle, had some drinks, eat some Zappoles (Brooke and I had five each -yum!), and watched Ted take on a crude Bozo the Clown. Alas, Bozo was still sitting onto of his platform when Ted was done. No dunkage for him. Finally, we eagerly awaited the raffle, excited and sure we would win. When the wheel turned round, the ticket was pulled...Rose Carbolio from "out of town" won. Greg is convinced it was a scam and the church took all the dough - over $20,000 of it.
We look forward to hearing from everyone over the next two years!
exciting and sad. We've had a great summer with family and friends, and it's become very real that we are actually leaving for two years! Our summer included time in Maui scuba diving, hiking, and hours at Fred's with my brother, Jen, and my mom, which was very rough, as well as climbing and hiking for me in Yosemite with Julie and Chandler, hanging out in Jackson, WY with Lauren and Dennis, backpacking the amazing four passes loop in the Maroon Bells Wilderness with Anne and then relaxing in Marble with the MACK crew, Greg going to two trainings/conferences and meeting some of his new co-workers, a busy tour of Iowa with Greg's family, and a final backpack trip for me with Beth in the Tetons. We are going to miss everyone and we hope to see many of you in India! It's always the hardest to say goodbye to those who we've been living next to - this time it's all of you whom we've spent the last three years with in GJ. Thank you for all the wonderful adventures and experiences! You are SICK and AWWWESOME!