Home, but not Home

---

Back in the U.S.A.! But not quite home. I am now in Islandia, New York. I am sitting in the Marriott Hotel across the street from my office. It was been a long day! And it is not over yet.

I woke up at 5:00am yesterday morning and said goodbye to Ayacucho. It was sad to leave, but I did have a nice last night. The girls made S'mores in the microwave (because we were too tired to make a fire), then we all gathered in the common room and watched the Director's Cut of Donnie Darko on my laptop, while I drank my last Cristal beer. It was a nice, relaxing evening. A perfect way to end the trip.

Alejandro drove me to the airport at around 5:45am and I caught my flight to Lima. Everything was on time, and I had to spend about 7 hours in the Lima airport, where I decided to eat McDonald's for breakfast and lunch. Big mistake! Out of all the food I ate in Peru...McDonald's is the only thing that actually make me sick!

I left Lima around 2:30 and arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica around 6:30. The airport there was happenin! There were people all over the place! I was only there for enough time to grab some food, a new magazine (I had already read Catcher in the Rye {for the 30th time}, Spin, and Newsweek cover to cover throughout the day), and catch my flight to JFK.

I arrived in JFK around 1:30, passed customs, etc...then finally met my driver. He informed me we were picking up someone else from Computer Associates that was heading my way. It ended up being the CIO of Niku, a company we just acquired. Lucky me! Here I was in my dirty jeans, hoodie, and Peruvian shoes...with a backpack instead of a laptop bag...and in comes the CIO of this company that I know nothing about! Luckily he was real down to Earth, and we had a good ride out to the middle of Long Island.

This morning was hellish...but I made it up and to class (only 20 min. late).

It has been a long day...and I have a few more calls tonight where I am going to have to make some decisions that are going to change my life...I will keep you updated.

I am also in the process of uploading the pictures to ofoto...so I will send out the links.

Thanks again for listening.

Kevin

---