Start Spreading the News. No Longer Gonna be a Part of it....

New York, NY

It must have been last winter, after one year down on the lease, that we started thinking of next steps after New York.  Going in, we figured NY would be a one to two year experiment, then on to..... Asia? South America? Europe? with Nestle. As busy as a first year as it had been after the Nestle transfer to NY, we started re-thinking the idea of an expat assignment with Nestle.  If the point of working abroad was to explore far flung places, how much time would we really have to do that with such a busy work schedule?

That led us to the decision to not seek a transfer abroad, but rather head back to Norhern California, and commit to exploring overseas on our own time.  So, with Southeast Asia at the top of our respective lists, we decided that once our 2 year lease was up, we'd "take a break" between jobs in NY and whatever awaited us in California, to travel.  We figured we might as well take a month in SE Asia, which quickly escalated to 3 months, then to 6 - very much like when we "dropped out" at the end of 2004, and 6 months turned into 4 years.

The second half of 2016 passed by quickly, with little in the way of "real" planning happening.  Just the looming lease end date of January 31st, later extended to end of February.  Soon it was time to give notice to building management, find a mover, and book a flight to Asia. We were on a train to Boston to visit Caroline's Dad and Scott's New England based family, when we finally committed to a move date of February 28th and a flight to Bangkok just after midnight after the move.

January and February were a whirlwind, with move logisitics, packing to do, travel planning, going away social engagements, and Scott transitioning his Nespresso duties to his incoming replacement (Jacqui, from the Australia market, who spent two weeks working alongside him in February).  Our friends, led by Michael, planned a fun night of eating, drinking, and karaoke for us a week and a half before the move, and presented us with a touching photo book compiling the fun times we had in New York with our favorite people.  Caroline openly wept.  A lot.  Scott's work send off was a low key but fun night at Reichenbach Hall, the German beer hall in midtown where we enjoyed some fun nights out when we first moved to NY.

When move day finally came, and after people either bought (or took for free) most of our furnishings, we were extremely prepared - of course.  But the moving company, not as prepared. They were supposed to arrive at noon, but didn't make it over until 4:30pm. Luckily our favorite concierge, Scott (different Scott), was on duty at the front desk and was very flexible with our elevator reservation, and the movers quickly moved out our things into the truck - mostly in the dark, since our apartment doesn't have many light fixtures.... BYOL - bring your own lamps!

Our stuff, on the mean streets of NY

Signing our stuff away to sit in storage for the next six months, we strapped on our respective backpacks and grabbed our bags, heading off to our exotic locale - Long Island City!  Yes, with an hour or two to kill before going to the airport, we arranged to meet our Queens pals one more time for a final drink and goodbyes.  Steve, Michael, Brian, Richelle, and Cate all worked with us for a meet-up at Brooks (different Brooks) in LIC, where more hugs were had before finally setting off for JFK, and the beginning of our next adventure.  Good bye NYC, hello Bangkok!