Let's hug it out

This is the time of year when I recharge my batteries, see some good dear friends, and rack up a boatload of frequent flyer miles traveling from work in the field, to home, back to Paris for my company’s annual meeting, then back to the field for work. Last year I flew from Russia to Colombia in mid-December, then from Colombia to Paris on December 22 only to catch my flight from Paris to NJ on December 23. Afterwards it was back to Paris for an annual meeting, then back to Colombia. I crossed the Atlantic Ocean five times in three weeks all the while managing not to get lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

Exciting as accruing frequent flyer miles is, the highlight of it all is going back home for some rest and relaxation and good quality time with friends and family. This year was no different. My family had in mind an exciting 10 day holiday packaged getaway to Costa Rica which would have included flight, hotel, some meals, and a range of jungle and coastal activities all for a decent price for value. Thrilling no doubt as that would have been, I had to make the case for a family Christmas at home since it is my one time of year to catch my breath and ground myself in familiar settings and a homebody routine that I don’t get throughout the year on the road. Alas, with my parents, sisters, aunt and uncle from Virginia, and several cousins it was a Garden State Christmas affair.

My 10 days at home were quite eventful in a variety of ways. Barely had I taken off my winter coat and brushed off all the snow it gathered from the Netherlands when the “blizzard of 2010” hit the tri-state area. Two days after Christmas I found myself – alongside my dad, cousin, uncle, and sister’s boyfriend – shoveling our way out of more than 2 feet of snow in the driveway. Far be that from a complaint though (seriously) because it was the perfect “home experience” that I was missing. I would take shoveling two feet of snow at home two days after Christmas over driving through snowstorms in the Dutch countryside any day of the week. We made the rounds to what we call the “greatest hits” of family favorite restaurants – Malaysian food, sushi, and the local bbq ribs joint – drank lots of wine, watched movies bundled up in the basement, and of course took advantage of the post-holiday sales in tax free clothes shopping New Jersey. I couldn’t have asked for a better family time for the holidays.

Family time soon transitioned into catch up time with great friends jumping on and off New Jersey Transit buses to New York and good ol Fung Wah to Boston. That’s really the point of this blog entry – to thank each and every one of you who took the time out of your busy schedule to meet up with me…and to apologize to the many folks who I missed on my most recent trip. Ten days wasn’t nearly enough to make the rounds of all the people who I wanted to see. But I am very thankful for being able to see those who I did. More than just seeing and ticking off a box that we met up, I really enjoyed the quality time and the good conversations we had to catch up on the past year and look forward to this new year. Each of the places we met up had a uniqueness to it that fit well with where you are in life now and/or how it fits into our friendship: an Applebee’s in a NJ strip mall to show how domesticated your life has become; bagels in Brooklyn just down the street from where you’ll be getting married this year; cooking greasy spring rolls for breakfast to shake off our hangover; trivia night at a Boston pub chugging $1 beers; and of course Chipotle burritos just down the street from our old stomping grounds. Your friendship means a lot to me and I look forward to seeing it grow in the new year.