Drove back up to Connecticut from Huntingdon Valley, PA, with a stop in Astoria, Queens to drop off my younger sister at her place.  I hit the city at one of the worst possible times for heading to Connecticut...weekday evening, start of rush hour, and a Yankee game just ended!  Well, I could have left immediately and got to CT around 7...or I could sit around for an hour or two and still get there around 7...so I decided to get there at 7...with a delay in Queens for some coffee.  We stopped at Caffeine (spelled in Greek) just under the Triboro bridge, a new place near my sister's apartment, for one of the frappe's my sister was gushing over the entire day.  It was very good...

Finally got on the road and aside from the heavy merge at the Bruckner interchange had a mostly uneventful ride to Connecticut.

It was my friend Dan's birthday, and he was starting the celebration in Stamford at the Live at 5 concert series event in Stamford.  Blues Traveller was the band that day...not bad!!!  Made it through the TERRIBLE traffic in downtown Stamford to a parking spot and then made it over to the park where the band was playing.  MOBBED!  Took almost half an hour to find Dan and co. but we managed to get together for a couple hours of celebrating (responsibly!) before heading back to Fairfield. Left just in time too...the parking garage had already closed the main entrance...I was able to get in through the car exit and get to my car and out of the lot before they shut it down.  Phew!

Arrived in Fairfield and went to our old hangout to wait for Dan and his girlfriend to arrive for the local party.  Turns out that she wasn;t feeling too well any longer (she wasn't driving) so they were gonna wait until Friday for the big party.  I had an offer to crash at their place for the night and wound up doing so...kinda funny since I also crashed at "the barn" on my last night in the US before moving to the Netherlands...

The next morning I took it easy.  Most people had to work, but not me :-)  I managed to check in on my storage unit and pull out some stuff I wanted to bring back to the Netherlands and then hung out in Borders for a while surfing the web (read: Travbuddy) until meeting the gang from work for lunch.

Lunch...Heaven!  Pizza at Frank Pepe's!  To me, without a doubt, the best pizza in the world!  We only went to the Fairfield location as my friends had to be back in Wilton to work the afternoon and New Haven is another 30 minutes away, but it's still great!  I'll put up a review...but for real...it's perfect (if you like thin crust pizza that is, of course).

Said my good byes then headed over to find a place to stay that night.  Could stay at the barn again, but I have to admit, I prefer hotel rooms, and got one at the Fairfield Motor Inn at the big traffic circle for the night.  Settled in and repacked my bags then took a short nap before heading out to watch the foootball match at the Field, a bar/restaurant in Black Rock managed by one of my neighbors where I know football has a decent following.  What an ending to the match!  Unfortunately, it went a little later than I had expected, and rather than heading back to the hotel to get ready for the evening (read: another nap) I had a call to meet some friends at a nearby pub.  Wound up there WAY later than expected and had no time to head home before going to my friend George's going away party (moving to Colorado the next day).  Well, had a little more time than I thought, as he showed up at Ray Kelley's first before the party at Captain's Cove.  Wound up at the Cove, said my goodbyes and met up with a lot of friends I hadn't seen in nine months before heading back to the hotel to get some sleep before heading home tomorow.

...next stop...Asia and Phase III

After being told in December I was needed in Holland for three weeks in early January, then having that extended to two months, then to three months, I insisted on a week back home first.  Then of course, right back to Holland...

This was the week where I decided to change jobs, so for the next sox months, I was working two jobs at once...Phase II of the travels.

...on my way to...

Home for a month with some relaxing trips to the beach and both my sister's graduation from Temple (see entry) and my graduation ceremony from Fairfield University.  Finally managed to start unpacking from my move...didn't get to stay for long though.

Closed on my condo on March 11, 2004.  Feb 2008 - Still haven't finished unpacking (especially with most of my stuff in storage now and someone else living there while I'm in Holland)

Finished my masters in December, 2003 and started dropping hints with work that I was ready to start traveling.  Had done some small work trips between 1999 and 2003: Portland Oregon, San Francisco/San Jose/Scott's Valley/Santa Cruz and Orange California, Tempe Arizona, Atlanta Georgia, and a my first trip to Eindhoven, Netherlands (with side trips to Amsterdam, Antwerp and Brussels, and Köln/Koblenz/Boppard Germany).

I had spent December and January hunting for a condo in Connecticut (which included my first ever purchase of a digital camera...Canon Powershot A60) and was preparing to close when my first offer of a trip came through, a week in Arizona.  This morning was the start of the journeys.  I left the next morning for Arizona, and have been on the move ever since...