Just a quick report on NY this weekend from the other side of the barricades!  I had the most incredible weekend!!!  I met El from Brooklyn in (duh...) Brooklyn on Sat. afternoon (she's on the TeamPenguin yahoo list).  We went to the NY Marathon Penguin Dinner and saw the Big List Penguins there, and I won't start with names because I'll remember someone I missed about 20 minutes after I hit the "send" button!  But it was a great dinner and super time with all the old and new friends, and of course THANK YOU to Daniel for doing the organizational work!  El and walked almost all the way from the dinner in Manhattan back to her house--we walked for at least 3 hours!!!  Saw Rockefeller Plaza and the horse carriages by Central Park and the huge homes overlooking the park and Times Square and Broadway just as everyone was arriving at the theaters on Sat. night and the huge hotels and stores and Chinatown and City Hall and the street vendors and St Patrick's Cathedral and we walked all the way down to as close to Ground Zero as we could get.  So many memorials and stores that haven't re-opened yet and police and firefighters and tourists in solemn awe.  We subwayed home only because we were exhausted--we got home 4 hours after the dinner ended!  Got up and had early brunch before heading to the marathon where it passes through Brooklyn and headed home for late brunch!!!!  Did I tell you I also ate my way around NY City???  Got to the airport in time for my flight, relaxed with a Starbucks so I could stay awake until I got home which was kinda late last night, so I'm taking today off!!!

The weather was perfect too!  We waited for El's boss at Mile 8 with water (he was planning to run just over a 3 hr marathon so we got him out of the way early) and then waited for all the pink hats to arrive!  First was Harriett and the Hot Flashes in their pink hats (Coincidence?  I think not!)  Glenn Gabriel found us so we could find the rest of the Penguin spectators at Mile 8!  The Achilles runners are so inspirational and the guides are saints!!!  We cheered and clapped non-stop!!!  Saw Mike Weber but he didn't see us and then Abe and then the Doug Shearer-Ron Horton-Daniel Wellner-Ryan from West Point group, who of course stopped for pictures!!!  I know Julia reported yesterday but I unsubbed so my mailbox wouldn't overflow while I was out of town!  Didn't see Carol from Germany during the race since she didn't have her pink hat on, but we tried to find her!!! 

It was so great!!!!  I'd never spent much time in NY City but every single moment of the weekend was perfect except for the Yankees losing last night--I'm not a big baseball fan but they were my sentimental favorite this year!

One other story from the race--El and I were at Mile 8 waiting on the right side for her boss who is a speedy fast runner.  A lot of the Achilles runners and guides were coming through before the runners and there was a small, older woman right next to us and all of a sudden she started shouting, with an accent, "An-sway!  An-sway!" and then "There's my son!  There's my son!"  So of course we wanted to help her cheer, so we said, "What's his name?" and she said "An-sway."  I kinda felt dumb then, but I've never known anyone named Answay!  I will never forget the look of joy and pride on her face, and Answay (an Achilles runner with his arm in a sling) came over and hugged and kissed her while we all cheered.  It was so awesome!