friends in the city

The day before I left for Ecuador I met my friend Erica in the city for lunch. She and her husband recently moved there so he can attend law school at NYU and this was the first chance I'd had to come to visit. It was a pretty busy day for me, seeing as I was leaving for Ecuador the next morning, but Erica had been hounding me to come visit for weeks so I made the time AND I'M SO GLAD THAT I DID! I met her at her apartment in Hell's Kitchen where we made cucumber and cheese sandwiches, then walked over to the pier and ate them. We talked about living in the city, job hunting, married life, and life in general. I had forgotten how nice it is to have a friend that I don't have to explain religious things to because she already knows, often better than I do myself. Erica is seriously an amazing individual that I am lucky to have met in my many travels and even luckier to have kept in touch with since then. I snagged the above picture as we parted ways for her to head off to an interview that she was hoping wasn't a sales position (it was). Luckily since then she has found honest employment elsewhere. Yay for adulthood!

Additionally, I forgot how dirty walking along the streets of Manhattan can make your feet when you are wearing flip flops. Exhibit A:

Note that this is dirtier, in fact, than the dusty roads of Lake Como, PA AND the fields and roads of Ecuador. Things to think about...