And this is the story of how one girl went to New York.
I have to thank Naomi for getting me to go to New York. As I casually mentioned that I woukd have loved to come too, but you know, Clovis and everything, she told me “YOU SHOULD!!” and wouldn’t leave me alone until I had it all figured out! 😆
On the day of I didn’t even sleep... because I was packing and because I had to leave the house at 3am to get to the airport on time. The drive wasn’t fun, but my carryon was on point and I wore beautiful shoes that will take me to beautiful places, so all was good!
At arrival I met up with Naomi and we went to a different terminal to meet Nichole, only to find out her arrival terminal got changed to the one I arrived at! Off we went, back to terminal we just left from.
We weren’t sure how long it will take Nichole to get through customs, so Naomi left me at the Nichole watching and calling duty and went to get coffee. Of course I missed her until Naomi frantically yelled at me “ISN’T IT HER?”. I can get pretty loud when I want to, so my mighty cry of “NICHOOOOOOOOOLE!!” got her attention all right.
Btw, take a moment to admire just how awesome our suitcases look!
We made our way to AirBnB, met up with the rest of the group (thank you, Marina, for picking us up in your car! I would never dream of driving in New York, it reminds me too much of London, so you deserve a medal for bravery!), exchanged gifts that Naomi and I prepared and were ready for some FOOD!
For dinner that night Marina took us to a Korean BBQ restaraunt where we met up with couple of other people. We didn’t wear kimono as we simply didn’t have time to change - by the time we arrived at the apartment, it was time to leave to go eat.
I was given a hard time about not mixing my sauces. To that I say - I try them first, then mix! 🤣 At the end I ended up just mixing them all together.
These drinks were amazing!
I don’t remember how long we spent in the restaurant but it was full of non stop chatting, catching up and Kimono talk! Even though I was meeting all these people for the first time, it didn’t feel like a first-time meeting. It felt like I was meeting long-time friends and picking up where we left off.
Some of the people were long time kimono friends. Others were those that I only recently “met” online, but it was so wonderful to be around kimono people again. Living in-the-middle-of-nowhere-Clovis-NM, I didn’t realize just how much I missed the simple in person communication. I didn’t see much of New York in my 2.5 days there, but I did make wonderful memories and now I want to do it again and again!
