The Opportunity of a Lifetime...

That's what they called it.
About 2 months ago I got an email from a reputable career recruitment agency. Years ago, I signed up to receive email notices about job opportunities abroad. A very unusual prospect, because I'm not in technology or web design or advertising or any of those globally available careers. I didn't expect to ever get anything except vaguely related spam.
But there it was in my email inbox; a notice for not one, but several jobs available in the UK in child welfare. There was to be an informational seminar in New York City a month or so into the future. Intriguing! I was planning my first roadtrip to the Big Apple in just a few weeks, so who knows? I thought about it for a bit then stored it away in the recesses of my mind.
A few weeks later, I made my maiden voyage via auto to NYC. Wow. I did it. I even drove around Manhatten at 3 in the afternoon, GPS guiding me all the way. I remembered to drive more daringly than I usually do so I could get where I needed to go. All my fingernails intact, I finally arrived in Brooklyn to stay with my son. We had a lovely weekend, visiting parks, the Bronx Zoo, eating key lime pie frozen on a stick, checking out the kite festival and a modest farmer's market. I happened to mention the informational seminar to my son over coffee one morning. I found myself talking about how working in the UK would afford me the chance to travel that I would otherwise find unlikely. The more I talked about it, the more I realized I was very very drawn to the idea. He thought it was great and said I should plan to go and that I could stay at his place when I came to town for the seminar.
As I drove home at the end of the weekend, I thought that going to the seminar was not a commitment, just an adventure and a reason to go back to NY in a few weeks. So, I made plans in my head to do just that.
The following week, I registered for the seminar at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in NYC, next to Grand Central Terminal. Four weeks later, I was there.