Julia & Her Octagenarians

SOUND THE TRUMPETS! My new career has officially begun as a tour director! I survived my first tour. I am now a bonafide tour director, tour manager, program coordinator, or whatever you want to call it! It was a 7 night, 6 day Culinary Adventure of 3 Cities: Philadelphia, New York and Boston with two excursions to Newport, Rhode Island and Gloucester, Massachusetts. (For some reason the real theme of this year is, you guessed it, FOOD--and you can definitely tell by the looks of me. I do indeed look as though I have been eating VERY well lately. I do not resemble the skinny, stressed-out office girl that quit her job and fled the country last year). That's fo' shizzle.

It was actually a great first trip. The boss-man went along with me the whole time because it was such a complicated, difficult first trip, navigating through 3 of the largest cities along the Eastern Seaboard. I won't lie, it was very intimidating, but at the same time, my boss Chris is a really laid-back fun guy and just kinda let me do my thing with some tips and pointers and reminders along the way. I say that it was a great first trip for several reasons: 1.) it went smoothly on my part--all errors were really made on Chris' part! 2.)the errors that were made were GREAT for me to learn from, especially since I had my boss there to help me handle all that arose.

Like I said, it was funny because all the errors that were really made were on Chris' part as he would make decisions that caused us to be late, etc. So I got to sit back and watch with amusement and LEARN. A lot of little things did go wrong just like I had been taught in my course. This one couple (one of the more difficult couples) had originally requested a king bed in the 3 hotels we stayed at but the arrangements had not been made so I had to clean that up, but it was easy enough. The bus driver also could have been a little better...and I feel bad saying that because he was a real nice guy and a pastor in his previous life to boot! He showed up late the very first day, caught in traffic--and he was a LOCAL so he should have known to leave an extra half hour, hour to account for that. Then the DVD player didn't work and because he had shown up late I didn't have the opportunity to check that out BEFORE my passengers got on and ended up looking like a ninny.

As far as the group itself, my 13 octogenarians were really great. There were a couple of them, when they arrived the first day in Philly that didn't give off the greatest first impression. Chris was actually shocked that the group was THAT old. Normally there's a lot more variation in the age range. I think my youngest passenger was 69...maybe. They were all generally in their 80s. Some of them had issues walking which concerned us because this program had a lot of walking tours involved, so I spent a lot of the time taking the back, making sure everyone was doing okay and no one was getting left behind. There were a few tense moments when it came to high curbs and uneven roads and there were some ESPECIALLY tense moments namely in the Reading Terminal Train Shed when we were getting our private tour. We had all made it up the rather long escalator easily enough, but it was a different story coming down! One of my passengers, this really sweet older man had had a stroke earlier on and had a shake in his hand and really kinda shuffled instead of "walked." At one point I looked down at his shoes and with HORROR I saw one of his laces untied. It was ALL I COULD DO NOT to bend down and tie his shoe for him cause I thought for SURE he was going to fall and break a hip or something. He said he could managed and I just held my breath and watched with continued horror as he kept shuffling his feet narrowly missing catching a shoe lace. As if THAT wasn't bad enough, when he went to get on the escalator, after everyone but 2 women, shoe laces flapping around wildly, he went to grab the MOVING rail and wasn't quite fast enough to step on the stairs in time with the railing so his body kinda pitched forward as his arms were out moving the rest of his body and then his shuffling feet managed to stop directly over where the steps were going to separate! I. just. about. had. a. heart. attack. I cannot STRESS to you all how SCARRED OUTTA MY MIND I WAS BECAUSE IT WASN'T JUST FOR MY PASSENGER, but if he had fallen, HE WOULD HAVE TAKEN DOWN ALL BUT 2 OF MY PASSENGERS, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE DOMINOES FALLING. Next thing you know I would have been ordering a slew of ambulances and my trip would have been over. OMG. SO THEN. (He doesn't fall--THANK YOU, GOD!--evidence that again, suggests that there is INDEED a god up above and a god that DOES in fact LOVE ME). So ya, if THAT wasn't bad enough, another one of my passengers, this really nice older lady that walked with a cane turned to me and said, "Julia...I'm scared of going down the escalator" to which I thought, "Oh my god." Luckily, or so I thought, Chris, who was a big guy and was still up at the top with us, volunteered to help her down, got on the escalator and took her hand, but she got so scared at the last minute that she backed away just in time so that Chris was stuck on the escalator and couldn't come back up and I was stranded up at the top with her thinking, "Great. How on EARTH am I gonna get her down that escalator. I'm half her size." All I could see was us tumbling down the escalator. Again, though. Yet MORE proof of God's existence: there was an elevator. The day was saved.

So ya. Aside from a few stressful, tense moments, everyone got along really well and I found myself really just having a blast hanging out with everyone. Now while it sounds like it was all fun and games--and there WERE moments were I was like "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this," I just want you all to know that I did work 18 hour days the whole week and that doesn't even account for all the research and studying and memorizing I did the month leading up to the trip. So it was a lot of work. But worth it I think!

Anywho.

For those of you who want the nuts and bolts of my tour here it is:

Day 1: PHILLY
Registration
Dinner at an INCREDIBLE Mexican fusion restaurant called El Vez
Orientation

Day 2:
Tour of Chinatown (& fortune cookie factory) & private lunch with celebrity chef Joe Poon
Tour of Reading Terminal Market w/taste tests-chocolate, pretzels, scrapple
Afternoon off (my boss drug me out to dinner with his friend)

Day 3:
Took off for New York
Tour of Chelsea Market with LOTS of taste testing-lobster bisque, cupcakes, spec, Parmesan, etc.
Tour of New York City & Central Park with hop-on guide
Dinner at an amazing Italian place called Naples 45

Day 4:
Tour of Lower East Side with lots of taste testing-pickles, mozzarella, canolis, tofu, mango balls, etc.
Lunch at Katz's famous Deli-had pastrami on rye sandwiches
Afternoon/evening free (my boss again drug me out to dinner with his cousin: BBQ)

Day 5:
Left New York
Lunch in Newport at the Pier-Amazing clam chowder and salmon
Tour of Newport Summer Mansions
Continued on to Boston
Dinner at Rani's Indian restaurant

Day 6:
Quick tour of Boston
Shopping time at Quincy Market
Lunch at Antico Forno in Boston's North Italian Neighborhood
Tour of Italian neighborhood with tons of taste tests-cookies, limoncello, grappa, olive oils
Tour of Sam Adams Brewery with tasting
Lobster dinner in Gloucester with story telling

Day 7:
Bus all the way from Boston back to Philly
Then drove from Philly to Albany with Chris