Road to the White House Planning Trip -- September 2019 - a stop at Brown University to see Petar Pesev!

I was traveling to New Hampshire to make the arrangements for my Road to the White House class.  This is a course about the history and politics of US presidential campaigns that includes a trip to NH and an intensive 10-day internship leading up to the first-in-the-nation primary.

See the course website
https://www.usfsp.edu/road-to-the-white-house/

and the course blog
https://rtwh2020.blogspot.com/

for more about the course. 

What does this planning trip have to do with Macedonia?

I had the opportunity to visit Petar Pesev at Brown University!

Followers of this blog may remember when I had the pleasure of attending his high school graduation from Nova in Skopje
https://jainmacedonia.blogspot.com/2017/06/nova-graduation-celebrating-class-of.html

Now Petar is a junior -- and exceeding all expectations (naturally). Wonderful to visit the Brown campus and to hear how things are going over a cup of coffee (not one of my beloved macchiattos, as in Skopje, but.....I did try one of their famous muffins) 

(here's my Ode to the Macchiatto.... my initial reaction to coffee culture in Macedonia...https://jainmacedonia.blogspot.com/2017/02/an-ode-to-macchiatto.html)

There used to be regular non-stop flights from TPA to MHT every day, multiple times a day. As I have been working on the NH planning trip (and making arrangements for the February trip) I have since learned that the number of non-stop flights to MHT has been dramatically reduced (and, in fact, for our February trip it looks like we will be flying into Boston's Logan airport instead).

In any case, due to Hurricane Dorian, changes needed to be made to my flight in to NH.  I had a very packed agenda planned -- and even arriving one day later would mean several meetings would have to be cancelled.  A solution was to adjust my flight so that I could fly non-stop to Providence, RI (instead of MHT).  (The drive from Providence to Manchester was about 1 hour and 45 minutes.) 

I flew into PVD, rented a car, and then drove into Providence. Enjoyed lunch with my former boss/mentor, the former ED of the NH Democratic Party (and Brown alum) at the Hope Club -- and then enjoyed a quick tour of the Brown campus with Petar Pesev.  And I still got to my first meeting in Manchester on time.  (First stop was the Beto HQs on Elm Street, see https://rtwh2020.blogspot.com/2019/09/rtwh-2020-planning-trip-september-2019_21.html

quick tour of the Brown University campus

at the Hope Club in Providence

We were even able to use facebook video to say Zdravo to Aneta Peseva in Skopje while we were together at Brown!