Okay, catching a breath, let’s recap…

Monday fly in with a flurry.  Late night eats, Tuesday – EXPLORE NY!  COMMENTS about they city, shops, and treasures found  Tuesday night – the first birthday celebration at Mel’s Hamburgers, everyone takes part and had a piece of chocolate cake – al a mode, birthday celeb take one.  Then more shopping, and then….

Wednesday – FIRST DAY conference – CSPA!  – log in, Tweeting, our first presentation, free lunch, rush to meet Mr Raphael Martin Soho Theatre rep, see Soho, visit Soho area, then go to NewuYorkian Open Mic – AMAZING, so far to me, the most amazing part of the trip next to Mr. Martin, was this Open Mic night, I mean THIS WAS AN OPEN MIC!  🙂 Camila was a judge helping the amazing winner Alicia get to the final round of competition, as we cheered on excitingly and full of energy.   AMAZING experience, AMAZING  :), block-long lines, and yet, we missed Alexa, Camille, and Sofia while they were diligent in getting their work in, we respected that but still missed them…:(   Late night cab ride home and…

THURSDAY – THURSDAY!  FANCY MYSTERIOUS SECRET DINNER, then MAMA MIA, limo ride, AND even though we presented yesterday TODAY at 2:30 is Repentino’s presentation from the staff!  🙂  YEAH!!!!  go to todaysmeet.com/CSPA to join the conversation and workshop – We’d love to have you.  Yes we have pictures but they are`soooo huge, we will get them up but it will take awhile amid the workshops…

So here was the skinny on Thursday – Sessions some good – seeing the staff work and prepare for their presentation here throughout the day…

the afternoon sped by like CRAZY – CRAZY and boom, we are in the room we are presenting in, Hamilton, and no MAC adapter for the screen/projector.  I was there early, so I called the IT for Columbia, and they said, “You got lucky in the last room – someone left an adapter there, however, we do not do that!” – I did go into panic a bit, but immediately emailed Alexa and Camila and told them to email the visual, just to be safe – so we have it on the computer in the room.  Next, I emailed Rebecca at CSPA, and no kidding, within 30 minutes, a Mac adapter! AWESOME!

Ms Dickson and family came, and students were coming in!  Repentino. arrived, and voila – they were GREAT!  GREAT – Nervous at first, but the presentation, experiences, questions, advice, started to flow and THEY DID AWESOME  🙂  VERY VERY PROUD – and everyone’s attention WAS captivated and kept…

Excited about how good they did, we headed back to be ready to be picked up at 4:45 – YES!  – JP’s limo, we have two, the ladies looked STUNNING! – and we headed in two limos to the restaurant – mysterious – THE Russian Tea Room!  It was mega mega formal, VERY fancy, and I have to say, the food stunned me and made me salivate, and was DELICIOUS – yet, the group we were with made it AMAZING – however, the atmosphere was okay – just not super comfortable – however, the wait staff, ALL OF THEM, were AMAZING – and AWESOME –

we left a little late, like 7:20 – to travel via JP to the Winter Garden Theatre to see Mama MIA!  I did not know what to expect, but after getting JP and limo prepared for our exit, we went in, grabbed seats, and I have to say…

I truly enjoyed it.  At intermission I realized we were going to talk to Zach following the performance, and we met Clif Thorn, who led us into the back area, then met ZACH! – the girls, um, LIKED him to say the least!  We toured the backstage, went ONSTAGE, and overall, it was AWESOME to have just seen him performing and then bam!  Talking to him!  That was definitely a highlight, and then…we got into JP’s limos full of reggaie, rap and loud jamming music, headed back to the hostel, and crashed – kind of  🙂  It was a night full of meeting who’s who and seeing New York brought to our doorstep!

Again, the second day, it has been hard, it has been rough, and PACKED, but amongst the tweeting, students receiving acceptances for college, and so much more, a piece of New York remains with us.