Bringing Up Bobbin

there's a lot to be said for a 3.5 hr stopover

the plane was an hour and a half late taking off and an hour late arriving at Newark. It took a total of 1 and a half hours to get through customs, get my luggage, check my luggage, walk to the security checkpoint and get to the front of the line. Somewhere in there the little perforated end of my boarding pass had come off so the front of the line is as far as I got. The made me leave security, go to the ticket counter, get a new boarding pass, and then line up for security again. The near tears expression on my face when they told me this must have made some impression because the let me go through the employee security line which was much faster. Its still security though so nothing happened at lightening speeds.

All the same I am on the right side of the checkpoint and next to my gate with an hour and a half left tip boarding. Plenty of time to pee and then cool off with a bottle of water. He'll I might even pee again after that.

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One hour later

I have just sat down on the plane. The overhead compartments are jammed with full size suitcases and bulging garment bags. At least the people sitting on either side of me are not amazons. But we're still waiting for at least one more bus load of passengers to arrive and board out here in the middle of the Tarmac. I will not be surprised if I have no suitcases to take through customs in Newark.

On the bright side I am about a quarter mile closer to being home.

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Musical Gates

From the time I arrived at the airport to the time I lined up at my final gate they had changed my departure gate 4 times 51. 57. 59. 56. I am still not actually boarding a plane. I am standing in line with 200 other people to get on a bus ( god I hope there is more than 1) that presumably will take me to a plane.

The fact I am not boarding the plane at an actual gate leaves me feeling a little suspicious. I will be annoyed but not surprised if we have a long wait on the Tarmac.

This seems to be the norm this morning at the Barcelona airport. Today is the last day of the conference so everyone is getting out early.

My flight was significantly overbooked but I got here in enough time such that they were still taking volunteers to wait a day as opposed to not having a choice but to wait. First come, first serve even if you did spend $1500 on a ticket. Don't ya love that.

What's more, I have to clear customs in Newark so if this flight doesn't leave on time me chances of getting my connecting flight to Seattle diminish and I do not relish spending another day away from home.

But one thing at a time I guess. First I just need for this line to start moving. We're already 15 minutes behind our scheduled boarding time.

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alguien que me quiere mucho me ha traido esta camiseta de Barcelona

That's what the t-shirt says that I'm bringing Bobbin home from Barcelona. A lot of her teachers speak spanish so it should be a hit at school, which is why I bought it :-)

I'm free! Last meeting today was cancelled because the person I was supposed to be meeting with left his briefcase with his laptop and passport in the cab so he had bigger things to worry about.

It's been a long long long 5 days. Saturday travel. Sunday weary and weepy sightseeing. Monday meetings. Tuesday more meetings. Wednesday booth duty and a couple more meetings. Tomorrow morning I get up bright and early and leave the hotel to go back home. And I can't wait to get home!

Tim's been posting videos of Bobbin online for me to watch. They've been adorable! I watch them each night before I go to bed.

Bobbin and Tim have called me every morning when she wakes up. She's getting really chatty on the phone, telling me about how quietly she's laying at preschool at naptime, and how they're learning about koalas in class, and what she and Tim have done. Yesterday they went painting at the pottery place. Bobbin told me she painted me a peasant. I'm pretty sure it's actually a present. I get to pick it up on the 19th, apparently.

Tim managed to sneak some bubble bath and chocolates into my suitcase before I left and I've been having a wonderful time each evening soaking in the huge jetted tub in my bathroom, eating chocolates and reading my book. I'm about 3/4 of the way done. I expect the plane ride tomorrow will let me finish it off. Just in time too, because I'll probably not finish another one until I go away again. Which at this point I'm feeling is at least another year away :-)

I can't wait to be back home! It'll be close to 11pm by the time I walk in the door but I'm still going to go wake Bobbin up to tell her I'm home. I'm taking Friday and Monday off to relax and get organized.

14 hours till I head to the airport. Yay!

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It is 2pm. I am finally in my room. And I'll be making ample use of this bathroom tonight!

It is 2pm. I am finally in my room. And I'll be making ample use of this bathroom tonight!, originally uploaded by heathcseattle.

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Hi Bobbin!

Hi Bobbin!, originally uploaded by heathcseattle.

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When in Barcelona on a Sunday, do what the locals do: Mass at Sagrada Familia

When in Barcelona on a Sunday, do what the locals do: Mass at Sagrada Familia, originally uploaded by heathcseattle.

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Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia, originally uploaded by heathcseattle.

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how does one say "I am mildly annoyed" in Spanish?

Flight to Barcelona was relatively uneventful. I was stuck in the middle seat of the middle section wedged between two men, one of whom was at least 6'6" ( I actually felt kinda bad for him and since he wasn't complaining I figured I really couldn't) and the other a smallish 6'2". But the flight was on time, service decent ( even though we were in coach) and I got my luggage at the other end, so all's well.

Except I arrived at the hotel at 10am and learned I couldn't check in 'til 3pm. Annoyance set in. Cause I have at this point been up a total of 20 hours and prior to that had only 5 hours of sleep.

Make the most of it, I figured. So I got directions to the metro and bought a ticket for what I thought was 4 days ("dies"?) only it only worked once. So I bought another after trying in vain to get help from a Spanish-only speaker through a drive-thru type microphone ( despite the fact the button said in English " push if you need help") and figured out which line to take and finally arrived at the conference site with the intent of picking up my conference pass.

Only I get to the checkin and learn " someone" already picked it up buy they can't tell me who so I have no badge.

And it is Sunday so everything is closed.

And it is still only 11am so I can't check into my hotel.

So here I am. Sitting on some dirty concrete steps blogging via phone. Can't wait to see the international data roaming charges for this!

Viva Espagne.

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I have arrived

I have arrived, originally uploaded by heathcseattle.

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Barcelona, here I come

I am scheduled to leave the house tomorrow morning at 5:05am to head to the airport to go to Barcelona for 6 days for work.

I am not looking forward to it at all. The last time I left Bobbin for any amount of time overnight was exactly two years ago when she was 6 months old. As hard has it was to separate myself from her for 6 nights back then, it is 200x as hard as it is now.

I hope she does ok. If I know she is doing ok then I will do ok. If I know she is having a rough time, then I'm going to be feeling miserable.

Tim has promised to post a photo of them both every day each day while I'm gone so I can check in and see them. And we'll talk when she wakes up in the morning and when she goes to bed at night. Twice a day every day.

Still it was hard saying goodnight to her tonight knowing that it will be the last time I talk with her face to face for 6 days. Ugh.

I'll try and make the most of it. At the very least, I'll try and get some sleep and read a book when I'm not in meetings :-)

Mommy will be home soon Bobbin! I love you! And I'll be thinking about you every minute I'm gone! Have fun with Daddy (and go easy on him :-)).

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Adventures at Grandma and Grandpa's!

As promised, here are the pictures from our trip, complete with descriptions :-)

Baby Girl woke up this morning bright-eyed and busy-tailed at 4am. I brought her into our room in the hopes she'd go back to sleep but she was having none of that. In a cheery way, of course. She managed to occupy herself in our bed for another hour, but as the light slowly brightened our bedroom she started recognizing things and started getting really excited; the alarm clock's LED display, the painting of herons above our dresser, the kitty scratching post... She sat bolt upright in the middle of our bed waving her arms and exclaiming at each familiar sight (and there are a lot of them, obviously). To the point where at 5am I gave up on getting any sleep and picked her up and took her out to the living room, her exclaiming and wriggling in my arms the entire way.

We opened up her Easter basket from her Washington Grandma and Grandpa (the Elmo card was a big hit! As was the furry basket and the care bear. Thank you!) and then one by one I brought out her toys, and one by one she'd let out a squeal of joy at seeing them.

You'd think we were gone 3 months!

She went to town in her jumperoo. Once she remembered how to bounce there was no stopping her.

We finally dozed off for a nap at 7:45am, while watching our Laurie Berkner DVD (which caused a whole lot more wriggling and squeals of delight until she got too tired to do anything but stare blankly at the tv screen).

There's no doubt about it. Baby Girl thoroughly enjoyed her travels - the plane ride, the visit with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Sarah and Mike and Aunt Glad and Jack and Aunt Penny and Bob and all the dogs, but she also really enjoyed coming home :-)

Enjoy the photos!

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Home sweet home!

We made it! Munchkin fell asleep on the plane just before descent and has been sleeping ever since. Tim and I are enjoying a late night snack of spaghettios and then we're heading off to bed too :-)

Our house still has that "new house smell"... never noticed it before, but it hit me strongly as I walked in tonight. Cool ;-)

Hope to have photos from our trip up sometime tomorrow!

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Firsts

It's our last night at Grandma and Grandpa's. I'm writing this after having consumed 2 glasses of red wine and some absolutely amazing organic european chocolate. hehe.

So how was the trip?

Let's see

First plane ride, first Easter, first meeting Grandma and Grandpa, first crawling, first standing completely unassisted voluntarily, first pancake, first big girl swing in the playground, first whispers of "dadadada", first 10 days in a row spent entirely outside from morning to dusk, first swan sighting, first geese feeding (face ended up in the bun, but it's the intent that counts. more later)...

And one exhausted baby girl (and mommy and daddy and grandma and grandpa and suzie-the-dog). Whew.

We got most of it on camera, so more to follow when we download the pictures and post the corresponding stories.

In summary though - an absolutely wonderful amazing super perfect trip and I'm sad to be leaving tomorrow :-(.

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Over the country and through Toronto to Grandma's and Grandpa's we go

Well - we made it. A few days back, actually, but we've been a tad busy since our arrival :-) The flight went super well! She couldn't have handled it all better. Slept through takeoff, had a nice mid-flight nap in her carseat on the plane, and handled descent and landing like a seasoned traveller. Not a peep other than smiles, giggles, and her usual "bwa bwa babababwabwa" throughout the trip. It was as smooth as silk!

She even weathered the 2-hour drive to my folks house with grace! We had to stop for a potty break, and towards the end she was really looking to get out of the darn carseat (we were able to get up and down on the plane but not so in the car ;-)) but overall she was terrific! Our little munchkin!

Since arrival we've been entertained by my parents' dog Suzie, my sister's dog Dexter, have had some lovely walks to the park to feed the ducks and geese and swans (which she loves!) and played outside all day in the beautiful warm sunny weather (with sunscreen and baseball cap, of course!).

The only tough part has been the strange surroundings and time shift have really caused separation anxiety to hit maximum throttle. So much so that she won't even let Tim hold her - she'll scream herself to sleep first in his arms before she'll settle down and relax. With anyone other than me really, but it's when she does it with Tim that I get the most sad. I don't know how to deal with this. It breaks my heart. I sat on the stairs sobbing while she screamed in her Daddy's arms, me wanting nothing more than to go and hold her and comfort her but we're worried if I do that every time she'll never be ok with Daddy holding and comforting her (although she does fine if I'm no where near the vicinity once I leave her. It's like she knows I'm still in the house, and just choosing to ignore her. Which I'm not). My heart breaks in ways I never knew before when I hear her cry and I'm not right there with her. I can't describe it. The experts disagree too on how to get through this phase - some say go to her all the time and some say let Daddy take care of her. So they're no help either. God I hope we get through this phase soon. It's killing me, and it's just plain bumming Tim out.

Sigh.

But other than that, we're having a blast! Baby Girl is clearly enjoying her grandparents, the walks, the new sights and sounds, and we're enjoying not being home :-)

Already taken several photos but they'll have to wait until we get home before we post 'em.

That's all for now!

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What happens in Vegas...

is a whole lotta nothin' if you're just there for a conference and 2 days of partner meetings and not into gambling, smoking, or drinking yourself completely ill, or strippers, or staying out all night. I could have checked out a show or two I guess, but I was quite content to curl up each evening with a book. I read two books while I was there! and none of them had pictures or big print! I even started a 3rd on the plane home.

Anyway, photos are in. Not a tonne - didn't get out much. But enough to say I was there ;-)

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Silly subtleties and soap stars

Either I have joined the ranks of conspiracy theorists, or there is some truth as to the ulterior motives of the little subtleties I am observing in this silly place.

- The casino is freezing. The restaurants, shops etc. are all comfortable. Granted, the casino is a much larger place so heat probably dissapates more quickly. But I suspect they intentionally keep it cooler to keep people alert and active.

- you can't tell what time of day it is. There is no outside light penetrating the casino. The lighting levels are kept dim and "evening"-like and the lighting is consistent regardless of time of day. And there are no clocks. You can literally gamble the night away and not realize it.

- mirrors mirrors everywhere, and my, don't you look slender in them! I'm pretty sure that the image reflected in all of the many multitude of mirrors throughout this hotel (and they are everywhere) is distorted ever so slightly to make one appear slightly more slender than one really is. Cause you want your guests to feel confident and great about themselves. Because then they'll spend more money. And who doesn't want to hang out in dim lighting and mirrors that make you look thin and attractive?

On a completely separate note, breakfast this morning was entertaining.

As I was waiting for the waitress to arrive to take my order, I casually observed the table next to me. Because that's what I do :-).

The voice in my head sounded something like this

- Hmm... that woman looks like she had botox injected into her lips. And she's awfully thin.

- hmm... Her daughters' names are somewhat eccentric choices. You don't hear those everyday.

- Is that her husband? I doubt it. Must be her boyfriend. Does Tommy Lee know he has a look-a-like wandering about? And those are definitely not his kids.

- That must be the nanny. She seems nice enough...

- a too-thin woman with botox lips, her 80s rockstar-wannabe boyfriend with the laid back attitude, the hispanic nanny, and two eccentrically-named girls. She must be "someone". Wow... that was presumptuous of me. Nice stereo-typing, Heather.

Just as I was finished chastising myself for my stereo-typing, the waitress stopped to pick up the receipt and said to the guy cleaning their table "Do you know who that was? She was on 'Days of our Lives' and 'Dance with the Stars'!"

Hmmm... it seems some stereotypes are rooted in truths. Apparently I was right on the mark; a B-class minor TV celebrity (whose career is apparently approaching if not already on the rocks, if she's doing stuff like 'Dance with the Stars'. Hmm, that was presumptuous of me as well, wasn't it ;-))

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The silliness continues

The hotel I'm staying in, The Wynn (this link is a review site; it has its own web site, but I found it annoying and strikingly devoid of any useful information), boasts the Penske Wynn Ferrari Maserati showroom; Nevada's only factory-authorized Ferrari and Maserati dealership, and which displays more than a dozen vehicles exceeding prices of $700,000. It's $10.00 to get in unless you're a ferrari or maserati owner, and then it's free. Not sure how you prove you're an owner unless you're in the habit of carrying around the title to your car. But then, I don't own either a ferrari or a maserati. I imagine there's some kind of secret owner's handshake or something.

Next door to the showroom is a ferrari merchandise store. And for a mere $125.00 I can purchase a pair of red knit baby booties with the authentic ferrari label on them.

They'd better be hand-knit and virgin wool for that price. I couldn't tell because they were behind glass.

For $225 I can purchase a matching red knit ferrari baby hat and a pair of mittens.

Down at the other end of the hotel are a couple of upscale shopping stores. Were I so inclined, I could drop a measly $75 for an infant D&G tank top. For another $75 I could buy a cute little matching D&G skirt.

The drug store's medicinal aisle sells only "non-drowsy" versions of pain, allergy, and sinus medication. Intentional, I think.

And there's basically a little shop for everything. Why, you never have to leave the comfort of your hotel - everything you could want is right here. Assuming you have any money left, after gambling it away in the casino.

My purchases for the day: 2 postcards, 1 lipstick, 2 postage stamps, some advil (the low lighting level in the hotel is giving me a headache), and some non-drowsy decongestant (I still have the remnants of a cold).

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Vegas first impressions

If I had to choose one word to sum up my impression of Las Vegas it would be "silly".

This place is just plain silly. From the fake statue of liberty and fake eiffel tower to the giant golden sphynx to the disney-esque facades on the larger-than-life hotels, to the big black pyramid, to the lush green golf courses in the middle of the desert, and everything in between. It's all just really silly.

My hotel is silly. Beautiful, but silly. The lobby is a grandiose cavern of coloured tiles and balls of flowers hanging from trees. There's a mile long walk from the front desk to the elevators through, you guessed it, the hotel casino. My room is HUGE (and it's just a standard room) and equipped with a flatscreen TV in the bathroom with remote control, and remote control curtains so I can close off the view without having to get out of bed. Even the minibar is silly. The placard resting on top of it reads

"Feel free to read the ingredients or count the calories. If you decide to indulge...and we hope you do...items that are removed for longer than 60 seconds will be charged directly to your guest account. Placing other items inside the bar may also incur charges to your guest account. Refrigerators for personal items are available through Housekeeping".

I wonder if I was automatically charged for removing the placard?

The view from my hotel room is silly. As I sit here writing this blog entry, my panoramic view consists of an enormous flat saucer-like disc resting on top of the building across the street, a large waterfall falling from fake rock, a gigantic pirate ship, several large gold buildings, at least 3 huge video screens mounted on various buildings, the size of each of which would rival the one in Seahawks Stadium, and which is continuously flashing colourful and sparkly snippets of the shows that are running nightly ("hundreds of thousands of rhinestones, barely covering anything"), and a whole lotta construction.

My room key apparently doubles as my "player card" for the casino. Hmm... does that make me a "player"? :-) It has my name on it.

I'll be taking pictures - not sure if I'll be able to post any before I get back. I'm off now to explore the rest of the silliness of this hotel and then to take a silly bath in my silly bathtub that has a waterfall for a faucet while I watch the silly flatscreen TV.

Gosh - I sure hope there aren't people out there that take this place seriously. Cause, well, that'd just be silly.

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Vancouver 2006 - Part 1

We're back!

And as promised, here are the photos! Tim took a bunch as well that I'll post or link to later as well.

It was a great trip, and Baby Girl handled her first trip away from home extremely well! But I have to say, when we got home and Baby Girl saw Tommy bounding out the door at us, I have NEVER seen a little girl so happy to see her dog as Baby Girl was to see Tommy. I could barely keep a grip on her she got so excited when she saw him; she wanted down right away, big grin on her face, giggling uncontrollably when he sniffed her, and then she insisted we follow him around the house for the next half hour so she could sit and smile at him and occasionally reach out and pet him. She loves him so much, it was pretty sweet :-).

We're pretty happy to be back too. Next time though I think we're gonna have to rent a minivan or a trailer or somethin. Between her clothes suitcase, her food bag, her toy bag, her diapering/bathing bag, her stroller, her booster seat, and her in her carseat, there wasn't really a whole lot of room left for our stuff! And that was just for a 4-day vacation!

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Hockey Night in Vancouver

We weren't sure what to expect but we were prepared to have to leave sometime in the first period depending on how Baby Girl was doing. She'd never been in an environment that loud before, or with that many people, so we were thinking she might get a little spooked.

But no, not our munchkin! The Canadian in her really shone through last night, and she made it through the ENTIRE GAME. Yes, the entire game, and without any fussing AT ALL. And with the exception of a 20-minute cat-nap that began at the end of the first period, she was wide awake, alert, and happy the entire time!

And as usual, she managed to charm her way into the hearts of our entire section and the section next to us. People beside us and behind us couldn't resist waving and making funny faces, their reward being one of Baby Girl's trademark glorious smiles. But several times I turned around to see what Baby Girl was smiling about and several rows up would see grown (drunk)men cooing and waving and gootchie-gooing like they were pros, between gulps of beer. She had them wrapped around her pinkie finger. And when we were heading up at the end of the game, a woman half way up the section next to us said "I just had to tell you your baby made my night! She's so adorable! I watched her the entire game!".

Yup, that's our hockey-lovin' little girl ;-)

Man, are we in trouble when she gets older.

We left the hotel at 6:30pm after dinner in the hotel restaurant for the 7pm game, and didn't get back until after 10pm. Needless to say by the time we got back to our room, Baby Girl was exhausted. It took absolutely no effort to get her into her jammies and give her a bottle and put her to bed, where she stayed (I swear without moving) until 5am this morning.

I think she's still recovering today. I took her out for our morning walk at 8:00am after a breakfast of fruit and oatmeal, we got Tim his birthday morning coffee, and then we all headed down to breakfast where she downed a bunch of cheerios and a teething biscuit. Ah yes... the teething biscuit. She had gummed that thing so hard she managed to actually break a chunk off of it. I actually did a double-take when I saw a little piece of biscuit pop out of her mouth momentarily and then back in again, because I thought she had it in her hand. I opened her mouth and there it was. A nice, big, choking-size chunk! We never let her have them without us watching her like a hawk to begin with, and a good thing too as we've now seen! After breakfast she had a nap in the room and then we headed to the aquarium where we spent a couple of hours watching the balugas and dolphins and sea lions and otters and fish and... you get the idea :-). We hooked up with Jake and Stef afterwards for a late lunch, and she slept through the entire car ride and almost the entire meal :-)She fell asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel, and then after another bottle and some playing, is now sleeping soundly again on the bed with her daddy.

Yup, she's one tired little tyke. But it's been a pretty big adventure for her the last several days and her whole world as she's known it has been completely replaced with hotels and restaurants and lots of stroller and baby-bjorn rides. Lots of information to process, and things to do, and people to charm, and places to go! It's no wonder she's exhausted.

It'll be interesting to see how she reacts when we arrive back home tomorrow.

Yup - we've got lots of great pictures coming but won't be able to transfer them from my camera until we get home.

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We survived the drive and made it to Vancouver!

Baby Girl did SOOOO well. Of course, the normal 2 1/2 hour trip was a 4 1/2 hour trip but we were totally expecting that so we were cool. Baby Girl did AWESOME for her first real road trip (and border crossing!). She amused herself in the back seat, talking, playing with her toys, her feet, some sturdy little junkmail flyers (she loves paper but it has to be sturdy or it just dissolves in her mouth) that we had given her... took a couple of naps, made a couple of rest stops and voila! We were there!

We stopped at a Denny's for a mid-afternoon between-bottle snack, and we stopped at the border for a diaper change. The tunnel after the border into vancouver had been narrowed to a single lane so we found ourselves stuck in traffic for a while there, and that was the only time Baby Girl got a little bit fussy - and can't say that I blame her since at that point it had been about 4 hours since we left home! I found myself flexing in ways my body wasn't meant to, to feed her a bottle from the front seat while she was strapped into her car seat in the back. That was interesting (if we hadn't hit the traffic jam it would have been a non-issue because we would have been at the hotel in time for her bottle). All in all, a very pleasant trip. Some things that we have learned so far though when travelling with a munchkin:

1) Time to switch to those nice platex bottles with the disposable liners. Then all we need to clean are the nipples. Simplifies life considerably.

2) Bring more than one munchkin CD for the ride. Or at least make sure it is a really long one. We must have listened to the "We are... the Laurie Berkner" 5-song CD at least 6 times during the trip. She seems to like it, and she seems to enjoy it when I sing along. It appears to help with the fussies. But as much as even I enjoy Laurie Berkner, one more round of "We are the Dinosaurs" or "This is the happiest song I know" would have made my teeth fall out.

Oh - I should also back up and let y'all know that Baby Girl and I both checked out with a clean bill of health. No fluid in B.G's lungs, and although the doctor was definitely puzzled by the large and tender bumps on the back of my tongue, I exhibited none of the other symptoms that indicate strep and so he wrote me a perscription for amoxicillin "just in case I developed other symptoms over the weekend, otherwise no need to fill it". Uh... I guess he thought he was doing the right thing. Whatever. Bottom line, B.G. has a cold but no fluid in the lungs or ear infections and I should rinse twice a day with salt water.

We arrived at the hotel around ten minutes to 6pm. Our dinner reservations were for 6:30. So we literally had time for Tim to shower, both of us to change, Baby Girl to get a clean diaper, and then we were back in the car and headed to the restaurant where we hooked up with friends Eileen and John, and cousins Jake and Stef for a wonderful birthday dinner for Tim :-) Baby Girl had a blast, and didn't even fuss when she was held by Eileen and then by Stef. In fact, towards the end of the evening she passed out cold on Stef! Hmm... the beginning of the end of separation anxiety? No, not so soon. I think she was just distracted by the new, fascinating, colourful, and loud surroundings, and the total attention that she had of pretty much everyone in the restaurant as well as our friends and family :-)

Yup. She pretty much had the entire room wrapped around her little finger. She'd be standing on my lap and flashing these gorgeous smiles, eyes twinkling, over my shoulder and when I'd turn around there would be a table full of people waving at her and making faces and "goo-gooing" at her and she was just absolutely loving it. It was pretty darn funny :-)

We got her back to the hotel where she is currently sleeping fairly soundly (except for the occasional cough and a moment of wakefulness that I think kinda scared her because she didn't quite know where she was at... we'll see how the night goes!

All in all, a great day and Baby Girl is on track to be an excellent little world traveller :-)

We got lots of pictures, but they'll have to wait till we get back.

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Barcelona

Departure and Arrival
I left for Barcelona on Saturday February 11th. Tim and Baby Girl got up at 5 to drive me to the airport for an 8:00am flight. The flight left Seattle on time and we got into JFK airport a little ahead of schedule, which is where I had to catch my connecting flight to Barcelona. In what I thought was a lucky turn for me, my boarding gate was moved so I didn't have to switch terminals to get on my connecting flight. The flight to Barcelona boarded on time and that is about all that went right when it came to the air travel portion of my trip.

You will recall Saturday is when the big storm hit the east coast. After boarding the plane in NY and pushing off from the terminal, we proceeded to wait over 3 hours on the plane for our turn to be de-iced. I was flying coach, and I was sitting in the last row of the plane - the one in front of the bathrooms that doesn't recline - so it wasn't a comfortable wait. After 3+ hours we were de-iced and then we had to wait another half hour waiting for our turn on the runway. Watching how fast the snow was accumulating outside, I was starting to get a little concerned that we'd have to de-ice again before taking off but thankfully that was not the case.

Plane took off, we got above the weather, and the rest was a pretty uneventful flight to Barcelona. Upon arrival in Barcelona (late Sunday morning) I collected my bags, went through customs and immigration, and quickly exited the airport and grabbed a cab to my hotel.

Who says they speak Spanish in Spain?
My cab driver didn't speak any english, I determined after he rattled on for about 10 minutes loudly in Spanish of which I speak none. After the third time of telling him I didn't understand I thought I'd try a new approach and said instead "Parlez-vous francais?". The cabbie beamed with excitement and replied with an enthusiastic "Oui!" and for the remainder of the trip conducted a fairly one-sided but quite animated conversation in french. I understood most of it and even managed to get out a few questions and sentences in my own broken french. Which, contrary to my experience in france, the cabbie didn't mind because it wasn't his first language either.

French proved to be my saviour for the duration of my stay in Barcelona. I never felt quite at ease in the city as I have in other European cities I've been to, but once I figured out that most people spoke at least as much french as I did I felt a little more comfortable and was able to get around (and get my coworkers around) quite easily. Every cab driver spoke some amount of french as did the Metro dudes and the security people, and most of the restaurant and shop keepers did too so once I figured that out I did quite well for myself.

Getting settled
My hotel turned out to be quite a distance from the convention center, and from the hotel where the other half of our group was staying, and from the meeting rooms we were renting while we were there. In fact, it wasn't really near anything at all. The other half of our group was staying at a hotel just outside the Olympic village, which sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is, as the village is pretty much deserted. However they were near the beach and there was a dock with a bunch of pretty cool restaurants and some bars and dance places so we ended up spending most of our evenings there. The convention center was quite a ways from any shopping and from the old part of Barcelona. So net net - no place where I was having to spend any amount of time was anywhere close to anything interesting to see or do. And on Sundays everything is closed, so there wasn't a whole lot for me to do on my one "free" day of the trip. So I contented myself with taking a taxi to the convention center, picking up my pass, walking a little of the area, and then grabbing a taxi back to the hotel.

That proved to be a little more challenging than you would think. First of all, there are apparently 5 hotels by the name of "A.C.". Only one of which was actually called the "A.C. Barcelona" but that seemed not to matter to the cab drivers who rejected me because they claimed they didn't know which of the 5 hotels they were taking me to. So I ended up having to get a tourist map to get the address of the hotel. However this too ended in frustration because every time I showed the address to a cab driver they'd shake their head and tell me they weren't going there because it was too far. Finally I figured out that in order to get one of these damn taxi drivers to take me anywhere I had to actually get into the car, close the door, put on my seatbelt and wait for him to do the same and THEN tell him the address. Not that they were any more happy about the situation ,but they wouldn't kick me out of the cab once I was in it so that tactic worked fairly well.

I got back to my hotel in time to shower and get changed and meet up with some of my team members in the lobby. We headed over to the 2nd hotel for a meeting with the larger group, and then out for dinner. I learned that our hotel and theirs and the convention center were actually all located close to metro stops so from then on I didn't bother with a cab and took the subway everywhere that was too far to walk.

Meetings, meetings and more meetings
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with meetings pretty much each day from 9am to 5pm. A couple were cancelled late Monday afternoon so I took advantage of the time to walk to the shopping district from our meeting place, see a couple of sights, do some shopping, and explore the metro system further. I can never get my bearings in a new city until I've walked it with a map and tried the local public transportation system. Once I had done that and used my french several more times in the process to communicate, I felt much more comfortable.

Tuesday night was the big night out. They eat dinner late in Spain to begin with; generally restaurants don't start filling up until around 10pm and usually dinner doesn't end until about 1am. So every night was a much later night than I was used to. But Tuesday night we hosted an event from 11pm - 3am for our partners and I didn't get back to the hotel until 5am. Luckily I didn't have a meeting until 10:30 that morning so I managed to catch a couple of hours of sleep before having to get up and get ready for my day. By afternoon I was hurting pretty bad, as was just about everyone in our group.

Sightseeing
As I mentioned the only sightseeing I was able to do the entire time there was on Monday late afternoon for a couple of hours before dinner. I walked from the convention center to one of the big shopping districts and managed to see a couple of the interesting sights along the way:

Casa Milá

Built by Antoni Gaudi around 1905-1910. The locals referred to it as "La Pedrera", translated as "the quarry" when it was built.

Casa Batlló

Also built by Antoni Gaudi between 1904 and 1906.

Our meeting rooms were located in another interesting building of similar style - El Xalet Golferichs Art Museum built by Rubió i Bellver around 1900 I think. The similarity in style is not an accident; Bellver was an assistant of Gaudi, working with him between 1893 and 1905 in la Sagrada Familia, in Casa Batlló and in Park Güell.

The 3GSM Conference was held in the Fira de Barcelona's Palau do Congressos de Barcelona located in the Montjuic area.

For neither of these do I have any photos, as I was trying to keep my daily load light when trudging between conference center and meeting place during the day.

The one place I really wanted to see, La Sagrada Familia, I never got a chance to. But no worries - I'll likely have to go back again next year, and this time Tim and Baby Girl will be coming with me and we'll take some extra days at the end for some real vacation and sight seeing.

But of all the sights in Barcelona that I saw and those I didn't get to see the most beautiful was the one that was waiting for me in my hotel room on Valentine's day when I returned after a full and exhausting day of meetings:

From my beloved Tim and Baby Girl :-)

I definitely would like to go back. I know there is a lot more to Barcelona than the tiny bit I experienced. At least I hope so. While the architecture was interesting, I'm not terribly fond of the whole "Art Nouveau" and "modern" look - I prefer stuff from the middle ages. Buildings with a long and interesting history. And the parts of Barcelona I was in, aside from the interesting buildings mentioned above, was mostly made up of plain cement square or rectangular buildings and in my opinion was all quite ugly. So I look forward to exploring the older parts of Barcelona and the parks and outlying areas on the next trip.

There are a few more photos from my trip here.

Adiós for now!

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I have returned!

I am back. Lots to share, but no energy at the moment. Tim's taking a well earned nap, and so is Baby Girl. Me, I'm just happy to be home!

I think I'll go watch Baby Girl sleeping a bit more and maybe later tonight I'll write about my trip and post the few pictures I took of the few sights I managed to see.

More later!

It's good to be home.

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Off to Barcelona

Off to Barcelona tomorrow morning. I'm all packed except for a couple of articles of clothing that are still hang-drying. I've always loved to travel, but this time I'm not looking forward to the trip. In fact, I'd rather not be going. I'm going to miss Baby Girl terribly. And Tim too, of course. But we've travelled without each other before. It's just tearing me to pieces just thinking about the fact that for 5 whole days I won't have my little sweetheart to cuddle and kiss and hug and play with and tickle and laugh and giggle with.

I'm terrified she's going to forget all about me. She'll forget what I look like, the sound of my voice, the way I hold her.

I'm scared she won't miss me.

And I'll be honest and admit that I'm a little worried that Tim will manage everything just fine without me; even better than I would. And then he'll wonder why I wasn't able to stay on top of it all. I know even if he does manage just fine without me (and most of me does hope he does) he'd never wonder that. Sigh. I'm going to miss Tim too so much!

So I'm trying hard to concentrate on what one could consider the positives of this trip. I mean, since I'm going to be there I might as well get something out of it:

- It's Spain! I've never been to Spain. Although I only have one day of sight seeing and that is the day I arrive. But I didn't want to spend anymore time there than I had to.

- It's probably warmer there than it is here.

- I will be able to get 8 consecutive hours of sleep (I probably won't; my body has pretty much adjusted to the 3am waking, and I actually really love that time with Baby Girl - just me and her)

- There is a gym and a pool in my hotel so I can work out every day!

- I'll get to drink real Spanish Sangria in Spain! And eat real Spanish Tapas!

- I'll be able to add to Baby Girl's growing postcard collection. I started sending her postcards last year before she was born - when I was still pregnant.

But as much as I try and concentrate on the positives, I'd give them all up in a heartbeat if it meant spending that time with Baby Girl and Tim instead.

Ah well.

More later from Barcelona!

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The rain in spain falls mainly in the plains...

Or so I've heard. But I'll get a chance to find out for myself because I'm going to Barcelona in February! GSM World Congress is being held in Barcelona this year (instead of Cannes, which is where I went last year). I've never been to Spain so that's pretty cool.

The really icky part will be leaving Baby Girl for 5 days. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I am sad just thinking about it. For 5 whole days there will be no beautiful little smile to start my day; no little giggles and laughs; no little baby belly to blow raspberries on; no tiny feet to tickle; no little hands to play pat-a-cake with. Ugh. Now I don't want to go! I'm going to miss her terribly!

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We're Back!

Happy Easter everyone!

Border crossings were swift; weather was grey and cold but not an impediment to enjoying a walk around the city on Saturday. Had a wonderful dinner with Jake and Stef to celebrate Tim's birthday last night, and equally wonderful Easter brunch today with Eileen and John.

Tim has summarized the culinary highlights of our trip with photos :-)

I think all in all, a lovely, relaxing weekend!

Oh - and we did control ourselves at Baby Roots - for the most part. Caving in to the teeniest tiniest little pair of Baby Roots track pants and matching hoody (in pink, of course ;-)). I mean - she is half Canadian. It's practically mandated by citizenship law that she maintain at least one article of clothing in her wardrobe at all times that has a beaver logo and the words "Roots Canada" emblazened on it.

Off to Vancouver!

We're off today for our annual "Tim's Birthday Trip to Vancouver". Normally, we splurge for seats on the glass and watch the Canucks take on whoever is in town at the time. Only there will be no NHL hockey this year, obviously. :-(

We will however still partake of the 2nd part of this little tradition and dine on Spanish Tapas and Sangria (well - for me it will be water ;-)) at our favourite spanish restaurant with my cousin Jake and his wife Stef! So should be a good time!

Ooooh - and Tim promised me at Christmas that once we knew the sex of the baby, the next time we were in Canada we could stop at Baby Roots and buy her something - hee hee :-) So we'll be doing a bit of shopping as well. (Only a bit. I promise to behave!)

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Dining in New Orleans

Last night's dinner was at a place called Louisiana Bistro on Dauphine Street just a few blocks from our hotel. Turned out to be another hit recommendation from our concierge who also was a miracle worker securing us a table for 5 at 7:00pm - right in the middle of prime dinner time in New Orleans at the height of two conferences that are in town. Excellent food. Most of it was seafood, of which I did not partake, but I had their pork chops which was served with jalepeno bread pudding and a spicey creole hollandaise sauce (yes - I said creole hollandaise sauce) and mixed veggies. Very scrumptious. Followed by white chocolate bread putting for dessert. Yum-my.

Today between meetings we had lunch at a place called "Mother's" on Poydras Street (established 60 years ago serving Po' Boys to dock workers) where I had me a nice Roast Beef Po'Boy with creole mustard and shredded cabbage (hold the pickles and the mayo). Atmosphere was great as was the food. For those of you in Seattle, think "Dixie's" in terms of atmosphere and service but with all the traditional New Orleans and Louisiana fare instead of BBQ - Po' Boys (with just about anything in between those two halves of french bread), red beans and rice, bread pudding, and seafood galore.

Sometime tonight I need to hit Cafe du Monde, the original French Market Coffee stand established in 1862 for a beignet fix before heading out of town tomorrow morning. I'll be skipping on the chicory coffee though - no caffeine for me.

In New Orleans, Sunday is "Drink for Jesus Night"

Dinner was great - we had a wonderful meal at the Pelican Club, which ended around 10:00pm and, feeling that the night was still young, decided to wander down Bourbon Street to meet up with another member of our group.

We ended up at a place called The Famous Door which I later learned, after looking it up on the internet, is Bourbon Street's oldest live music club.

The band that was playing was pretty darn good - they did everything from Cheap Trick, to Journey to Aerosmith to... well, whatever. And did it really well. Baby got a good dose of bass this evening. I've read that babies in utero generally don't start to hear sounds outside the womb until about week 25, but I'm postive that our baby could feel the music tonight! I've been back at the hotel for an hour and he or she is still kicking up a storm.

The people-watching was plentiful as well, but that is true for all of Bourbon street at night, not just The Famous Door. But we'll start with the bar... shot girls pushing test tube drinks - you know, the kind that they hold in their mouth and then tip into yours... etc. etc. Plenty of that going on. And then down in front of the stage were these two little girls - I kid you not, they couldn't have been more than 17... both dressed in these delicate long pink satin prom gowns, shakin' their "thangs", and banging their heads to the beat of the music while waving their neatly manicured little cigarette-gripping fingers in the air, flirting with the band. The only time they stopped was when the shot girls would pass by with the test tubes, and then they'd do double shots and continue dancing. The contrast of the head-banging, shot-drinking, cigarett-smoking party moves with the delicate pink prom dresses was pretty surreal.

It was during a Cheap Trick song that I received a text message from Tim, after several failed attempts to call each other and hear each other over the bar sounds. I flipped open my phone to reply and a man in front of me who had been enthusiastically rocking out to the tune of "I want you to want me" turned around and said "Hey! Put that phone away! This is Cheap Trick!". When the song was over and the band had switched to Aerosmith, he came back and told me it was ok for me to use my phone again, pulled out his own blackberry device and explained that his wife had emailed him during Cheap Trick, but NOTHING would ever interrupt him during a Cheap Trick song, despite the fact that she's 8 months pregnant.

And then there was the huge crowd of guys standing around in the middle of the street outside the bar staring up at one of the wrought iron balconies throwing beads and encouraging the two women who were staggering around up there drinking and giggling to show them their "stuff" (only they weren't yelling "stuff" if you know what I mean).

The city definitely has a smell to it too. It was vaguely noticable during the day, but it was definitely noticeable at night. It smells like... well... a garbage dump.

But I think the moment that really defined it all for me was when the lead singer of the band on stage back at the Famous Door yelled into the microphone during a song change "Hey everybody! It's Sunday night! Sunday night is Drink for Jesus Night! How many of you are Drinkin' for Jesus tonight?" and then proceeded to slug back a test tube shot. With the number of hands that shot up to answer his question I'm thinking (actually I'm hoping) I was the only pregnant woman in the bar tonight... all I was slugging back was water.

New Orleans. Definitely a free spirited town. And the only city I've been in that parties like this on a Sunday night. And it was only 11:00pm when I got back to the hotel.

Unfortunately I had left my CF card for my camera back in my laptop so didn't get any pictures. But we'll be going out again before the trip's over, so I'll make sure I capture some of the "essence" of the city to share with you :-) I wonder if Mondays and Tuesdays are as rowdy as Sundays... hmm... there are just so many things wrong with that question. :-)

Off now to shower and head to bed. We'll see what tomorrow brings us!

Welcome to The Big Easy

Well - I've made it to New Orleans, after a fairly uneventful flight (my favourite kind) with a 2-hour stop over in Denver. When I went through the self-service check-in at Seattle it gave me the option of upgrading to "Economy Plus" which has "up to 4 inches of extra leg room" for $53. Hell yeah - even if I only get 1 or 2 inches of extra leg room, I'm happy. I think I got the full 4 though - it was actually quite a comfortable trip. It was also a gorgeous day for flying. my "upgrade" put me on the right side of the plane, and since we were taking off to the south, I had a beautiful view of Mount Rainier as we turned onto our flight path to Denver.

After claiming my bag, grabbing a taxi to the hotel, and checking in, it was about midnight local time by the time I got up to my room. They ended up giving me a smoking room though, instead of non-smoking. However you can't really tell it's a smoking room until you actually leave the room and run into people puffing on their cigarettes while waiting for the elevator. It's a nice room - it's actually quite a nice hotel. I'm pretty pleased. AND it has wired high speed internet access. Yay :-)

I woke up about 5:30am this morning. Why, I have no idea - since it'd be about 3:30am in Seattle. I thought going east-bound I'd be more likely to sleep in and wake up around 9am, but nope. Not me. I made myself to stay in bed until about 7:30 but was finally forced out by my all consuming ravenous hunger. Got dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast.

After breakfast, I decided to orient myself to the city. I walked over to the W Hotel - which will be the site of all of the meetings I need to go to - and then figured out where the convention center was. It was only about 9:30am by the time I got back to the hotel but it was already way too warm for a jacket (it was actually way too warm for my light white cotton sweater and jeans, but not a whole lot I could do about that) so I ditched the jacket in my room, and then headed off to see the sights of New Orleans. This is really my only opportunity for sight seeing, since I have meetings Monday and Tuesday and then fly back Wednesday morning.

Our hotel is near the corner of Canal street and the infamous Bourbon Street. However the concierge and the taxi cab driver from the night before suggested that during the day I'd want to walk along Royal street - it's much more interesting during the day. Bourbon Street is active at night, but apparently doens't have a whole lot going on during the day. So I took their advice. Royal Street is filled with galleries and antique stores and little shops although they were still all closed at that time of the morning, and the street fairly quiet.

I took Royal Street through the French Quarter to St. Louis Cathedral, which if you recall from my previous post, is the oldest continuously active Roman Catholic Cathedral in the United States. It was originally built in 1724 and rebuilt twice after a hurricane and a fire. Since it is Sunday, I caught the tail end of a mass when I went in. In fact, I arrived just as they were finishing communion and starting to pass the collection plate. I tell ya - I have the best timing. But I wanted to be respectful, so I stayed and sat quietly in the back, and listened to the hymns and the real pipe organ that was being played by a real pipe organist, and let the hazy childhood memories of going to catholic church on sundays drift over me. When mass was done, I took a look around. It's a gorgeous church, to be sure.

Across from the church is Jackson Square, and as I was crossing the square I saw a line of horse-drawn carriages waiting to give tours of the french quarter to anyone interested. I wasn't sure I wanted to bother, but then I saw this one horse decorated with pretty yellow roses (fake, of course, but still pretty). However the real thing that decided for me that I needed to do this, was when I heard the tour guide speak with his easy, smooth, lilting New Orleans drawl. Wow - I just had to hear more. To be honest I couldn't understand everything he said, but it was really quite pleasant to listen to ;-).

I knew to expect that the French spoken in New Orleans would sound very different from France French or even Quebecois. But it took me quite a while to figure some stuff out. Our tour guide spoke English, but of course, being in the French Quarter, most of the place names were french names. As the tour guide started talking about the "Boo-ka-ray", which he said translated to "old square" I was completely lost. Even having been given the English translation, I was completely stuck. Just as I was thinking to myself that the only word I know in french was "Vieux" It wasn't until I saw the sign "Vieux Carré" that I understood. He wasn't saying "Boo-ka-ray". He was saying "Voo-ka-ray". But had I realized that, it still wouldn't have helped me much. I had to actually see it written down for it to click. To make matters funnier, as I was researching the internet to bring you this link to more information about the "Vieux Carré", the web site I found gives it a pronunciation of [view-ka-ray]- which would have probably been as equally perplexing to me had our driver used that pronunciation instead.

New Orleans actually has quite a rich and interesting French and Spanish history. You all may know this already, but it was quite fascinating to me. I also got a brief lesson on the Louisiana Purchase as we passed by the place where it was signed, and I'll have to go read up on that a bit more, now that my interest has been piqued.

The tour dropped us off back at Jackson Square. From there I strolled up through the farmer's market and flea market. The farmer's market was great fun - air filled with the savoury smell of hot sauces and creole spices. At the end of the market I crossed over to the river walk and strolled along the Mississippi river for a few blocks.

That took me back to St. Louis Street, where the New Orleans School of Cooking and General Store is located. They have real lessons in Creole cooking there during the day, and as it happened there was one in session when I got there. I didn't sit in, since it had already started, but I explored the shop and picked up a souviner for Tim in the process :-)

Another famous landmark on St. Louis Street is Johnny's Po'Boy restaurant. The Po' Boy, or "Poor Boy" is a sandwich made with French bread. According to our tour driver, it started back during a local transit worker's strike. A local restaurant in the French Market took pity on the "poor boys" who were out of work, and concocted sandwiches made from french bread and leftovers that they would sell for pennies to strikers who came by. Also according to our tour guide and my taxi cab driver from the night before (who was as you can tell a fountain of information in his own right), you can put just about anything between two halves of french bread and make it a "po' boy". today they are often filled with seafood - in particular fried oysters. But you can still order them with just about anything in them - especially at Johnny's.

Unfortunately the place was totally packed, and I was hot, and hungry and not inclined to wait. So I'll have to try and make my way back over there on Monday or Tuesday.

I headed back over to Royal Street and by now the shops were all open and the street was lively and filled with people - mostly tourists from the number of people snapping pictures that I observed. According to my taxi driver from last night there is a Nursing conference here in town too (yeah - it's actually a classic combination: Techno Geeks and Nurses. It reminds me of my days at McGill where the engineers would have their friday night engineering beer bashes, and invite the nursing students to attend to increase the ratio of women to men. Not that it really helped them in any way in the end ;-) but I digress). Musicians were playing in all of the indoor/outdoor restaurants and cafes and on the streets. And the thing that struck me as interesting was that as I was walking I didn't hear a single bad musician or singer. I mean - I've been in a lot of cities and heard a lot of street musicians, subway musicians, and "entertainers". You've got your decent ones. And you've gone your really bad ones. But the ones I heard as I walked the streets of New Orleans today were all really good. It is definitely a musical city - true to its fame. Should be totally cool to see and hear it at night.

The above photo also gives you a bit of a glimpse of the wrought iron balconies that are prevalent throughout the french quarter. Although it is called the French Quarter, the wrought iron balconies and the hidden central courtyards are Spanish architectural influences, as Spain was the ruling entity at the time (1762-1800) and as such, were the ones who oversaw the reconstruction of large portions of the city after the big fire in 1788 that burned over 850 structures . The buildings in the quarter are authentic - dating back to the reconstruction of the 1700s.

If you look closely at the balconies, you would also more often than not see them adorned with Mardi Gras beads glinting in the sun. The stores are full of them too. It makes for quite festive looking streets, even when Mardi Gras is over :-)

After a leisurely stroll back down Royal Street to Canal, I returned to the hotel, had lunch in the restaurant there, and then made some dinner reservations for our little team for this evening. The concierge picked a place called the Pelican Club. It's a brief walk from our hotel and should be fun!

Then it is off to meetings tomorrow :-)

(Incidentally, and I'm not normally one to plug this kinda stuff, I found all of the above links and the ones in my previous post using the New MSN Search. I have to say - I've been very impressed with its results since the launch of their new and improved service!)

Off to New Orleans

I'm off to New Orleans today for another conference. Back on Wednesday. This will be my first time to The Crescent City.

Setting aside its well established reputation for Jazz, food, and Mardis Gras celebrations, there are a number of historical facts about New Orleans that make it an interesting place to visit.

- Louisiana was claimed for French king Louis XIV in 1699 and is the only state that was once a French royal colony.

- New Orleans is the only U.S. city where French was the predominant language for more than one century.

- New Orleans is the American city occupied longest by enemy troops (the Union Army 1862-65) during the Civil War

- The city has approximately 40,000 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, more than most other cities in the U.S. including Washington D.C.

- St. Louis Catherdral, located in the historic French Quarter, is the oldest continuously active Roman Catholic Cathedral in the United States. It was originally built in 1724 and rebuilt twice after a hurricane and a fire.

- Many of the tens of thousands of live oak trees that line the city streets and boulevards date back to before the Civil War. They have survived hurricanes, droughts, insects, and fires.

- The New Orleans Streetcar line is the oldest continuously operating rail system in the world.

- The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra is the only full-time, player-managed symphony in the United States.

Should be a fun trip!

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My turn...

Tim's outta town today and tomorrow. Left for Portland, OR this morning. So it's just me, Tommy, Ginger and Spice (and little tiny person inside me) for tonight and tomorrow. 2 days is easy though - I'll be at work the entire time. Still - I miss him!

Yeah yeah...I know. I'm a mushpot. Whatever. :-)

Sight Seeing in Cannes - the full report (Part 1)

Now that I'm home with access to bountiful and reliable bandwidth, I can give you the full trip report, Heather-style :-)

Cannes, "Joyau de la Méditerranée", is located in the South of France on the Mediterranean sea in an area also known as la Côte d'Azur, so named for the brilliant blue colour of the water.

Perhaps most famous for the Film Festival, Cannes actually plays host to many gatherings, festivals, and conferences every year. The one that I was there for was 3GSM World Congress.

Sunday 2/13 was my first full day in Cannes and I had most of the day to myself. I had a meeting at 5pm with the folks from my immediate team, and another one at 6pm with the larger group of folks that were there representing our company. So after breakfast, I took the opportunity to do a bit of site seeing before having to think about work.

The first place I chose to explore was Le Suquet. Le Suquet is the highest point of the old town and owes its name to the local Provencal dialect, in which Suquet means "summit". Le Suquet is also where the first dwellings and fortifications of Cannes were erected around 1000 A.D. Today, le Suquet is occupied by la Tour Carrée (the square tower) which began construction in 1080 and was completed 300 years later; the church of Notre-Dame de l'Espérance built in the 17th century; and la Musée de la Castre which is housed in the remains of a former castle built by Marcellicus and inherited by the monks of Lérins around the end of the 11th century.

After touring le Suquet and wandering through the collections at la Musée de la Castre, I wandered back down through le Vieux Port and down the beach back to the hotel.

After a short nap, I headed up to what quickly became known amongst ourselves as well as the companies with whom we were meeting as "The Villa", for my first meeting where we got ourselves oriented, synchronized our schedules, and just generally prepped for Monday.

After our orientation meetings we headed out for our first real dinner in town. It took us a while to find a restaurant that could seat us. It was 9pm, which is the normal dining time for the city (for France / Europe in general), and with 3GSM World Congress in town, everything was packed. We finally found a nice place and after a full stomach, it was back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

I've posted these and more photos along with more detailed commentary on the pictures in the Cannes 2005 photo album.

More entries and pictures coming soon, so stay tuned!

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Lifestyles of the Rich and Frivolous?

There are some things that you see that are only camera-phone worthy. You know, the "Wow. That's really kinda wacky - I gotta show this to [fill in name here]" sorta pictures. The kinds of things that are only worth the 2 second effort of pulling your camera phone out of your pocket and snapping a picture, vs the 20 second effort of unzipping your bag, pulling out your real camera, taking off the camera lens, focusing and snapping the picture.

Here are two such camera-phone-worthy subjects, snapped during a little jaunt to Monte-Carlo, Monaco Thursday afternoon/evening.

The first is a peacock-feather skirt by Prada. Or was it Escada? Or Gucci? Does it even matter?

The second is a gold-plated bathroom sink :-)

Unfortunately it was passed closing by the time we rolled in to Monte-Carlo so all we could do was window shop. Because otherwise, of course, we'd have been in the stores spending madly. Sure we would have.

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Au revoir, Cannes.

Today was my last day in Cannes. I figured it'd be wise to start the day with a visit to the church just around the corner from my hotel:

With a name like that, it couldn't hurt, could it? :-) A very pretty church. I took some photos of the inside as well, but you'll have to wait for those.

I spent the rest of the day souviner shopping, took a boat ride over to Ile Sainte Marguerite where I saw the prison of the Man in the Iron Mask, and wandered the fort, museum, and forest paths for two hours. The boat ride back was followed by a nice lunch by the marina after which I took a nap at the hotel, packed, and then had a great dinner at an out-of-the-way little italian restaurant in the old section of town. All in all, a very nice way to spend the last day.

I don't have the bandwidth or the software to upload all the pictures I took on the trip, or a reliable enough connection to provide all the usual commentary, history, etc. so you'll have to check back Sunday for the full report and photos.

I'm off to bed. Have to leave the hotel at 6am to get to the airport in Nice.

Next stop - HOME!

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I'm Free! (Almost)

Just wrapped up my last meeting of the conference! The only thing left for me to do now is "booth duty" - i'm on the schedule for tomorrow morning. I've never done "booth duty" before but I'm told it's a no-brainer. I stand there and demo our product to people who come by. Only most people that come by, I'm told, will not really be interested in our product or a demo, but are more likely more interested in "schmoozing" and asking totally random questions that are completely unrelated to the product that I am demoing. And since tomorrow is the official last day of the conference, most people will be bailing early, so I suspect there won't be that many people coming by our booth at all. But I'll be there, with my black pants and shoes, and white shirt with our logo on it, demo script fresh in my mind, all ready to do my thing.

I wandered around the exhibitions on my own this morning, and noticed that quite a few booths had oddly, scantily, or flashily (is that a word?) women handing things out, or demoing products, or go-go dancing on platforms to techno-music. So I'll happily take my black pants, white logo'd shirt, and demo script over any of that ;-)

I wanted to take pictures - I had my camera phone (actually Tim's!) but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I think it was the fact that I was the only woman standing in a sea of men also holding out their camera phones pretending to check their schedules.

Anyway - after 12:30pm tomorrow I'm a free woman! Tomorrow afternoon and all day friday belong to ME! ME ME ME. I can get up whenever I want, eat whereever and whenever I want, go whereever I want, and indulge my gelato cravings (not only is this the land of italian restaurants, it's also the land of gelato - I guess being so close to Italy, and on the mediterranean and everything ;-)). Oh - and check out the ferrari store for Tim (even though I already bought him a souviner ;-))

Then it's off home on Saturday! bright and early. With a 5 hour stopover in Heathrow. But it'll be ok, because I'll be on my way home!!

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Why it's called la Côte d'Azur

The pictures don't really do it justice. But here's the real reason why I'm here:

And this next one is just for Tim - the store is right around the corner from the hotel I'm staying in. I promise to check it out when it is open before I leave! ;-)

I have many more pictures from my little adventure roaming around the town today but they'll have to wait until I get home cause the bandwidth and reliability here just sucks.

All settled in...

Ramblings from a travel-weary mind

Well - I finally made it to Cannes. All in all, a very uneventful trip to Nice, which is nice (I never get tired of saying that ;-)). Had some turbulance. Made me laugh at the people who had ordered wine with dinner as it was splish-splashing all out of their glass. Me - I had water. I just put the cap on and stayed dry.

We actually left Seattle an hour late, but arrived over Heathrow half an hour earlier than originally scheduled. Go figure. as it turns out though, we ended up arriving at our gate exactly at the originally scheduled time - they made us fly in a holding pattern for 30 minutes due to winds.

The flight from Seattle to Heathrow was pleasantly not full. I was in an aisle seat (strategery on my part - being pregnant and all, I anticipated many trips to the bathroom, and I was right). but the seat next to me was also empty so I conveniently usurped it for my purse and my laptop bag, eliminating the need for me to put anything in the overhead bins. It also came in handy when I decided to take a nap. Extra space. It's a good thing.

10 reasons why I like flying British Airways Economy Class better than North American airline economy class:

1) Don't need to pay for the headphones for the movie
2) EVERYONE gets a pillow AND a blanket
3) Each seat has its own personal TV embedded in the back of the seat in front.
4) You get 18 channels of Movies and TV to choose from. Options are good.
5) Even in the 50th row (5th from the back) I still get my choice of their two meals
6) Free mini-bottle of wine for dinner; and your choice - red or white. Being pregnant I went with sparkling mineral water and opted out of the wine. BUT it's still pretty cool.
7-10) They give you a little kit containing slippers, an eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste - yes - in economy class!

No doubt about it. If you gotta go overseas economy class, do it with BA. They'll take care of you.

My stop-over in Heathrow was 4 hours. I wandered the shops, bought and sent some postcards, had a meal, napped a bit, and then wandered over to my gate when it was finally posted. They booked me business class from London to Nice (all together now - "which is nice" ;-)). Except for the gentleman sitting in the middle next to me - who had a carry-on larger than my checked bag and who was insisting that he was going to sit with the thing between his legs the whole flight. He lost the argument and the flight attendant took it away. Thank goodness. but then he was up and down every 5 minutes - he wanted to get something from his bag; he wanted a glass of water; he wanted to go to the bathroom.... whatever.

So I finally got to Nice - on schedule (which is...? what?) and one of my coworkers had a car waiting for him and gave me a ride as well.

There are palm trees here. It's quite tropical looking actually. It's warmer than Seattle is right now, but not "summer" temps. My hotel isn't that far from the beach. I might go exploring tomorrow. Ah - my hotel. Not exactly the 4 star that most of the rest of the gang is staying in (there are 5 of us staying at this hotel. The rest of the folks from work are staying in what is referred to as "The Villa". "The Villa" has a heated swimming pool, and spa, and fitness room, and it's absolutely gorgeous from what I saw as we drove past it on the way to MY hotel). I'd call this hotel a very basic and european 3-star. It is clean. The staff is friendly. It's conveniently located. It is reasonably priced. I'd stay here again I think. Especially if I was on a budget and paying for the trip myself (which thankfully I am not ;-)). But there is a bit of false advertising going on with their web site with respect to the services they offer. "Room Service" only refers to breakfast. The "Wireless Internet Access" is archaic, flakey and unreliable. The "nicely appointed rooms" are the size of our bathroom at home (but that is really not all that surprising in Europe). The "view of the bay" must have been referring to the rooms on the other side of the hotel because all I have from my room is a view of the building across the street. The bathroom is marble - I'll give them that. And I did get free slippers.

Anyway - that's where I'm at. It's 1:00pm in Seattle; 9:00pm here in Cannes. I'm exhausted. Discounting the 3-4 hours of "rest" I got on the plane to London and in the Heathrow departure lounge, I've been up for a total of 30 hours. So with that, I think I'll turn in and see about getting a fresh start tomorrow.

Bon Nuit!

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Vive la France!

I'm off to France tomorrow, in case you haven't guessed! 8 whole days. I'd come home sooner, since Tim isn't coming with me, but I couldn't get a flight back before Saturday. Besides - it gives Tim an extra day to "get the kitties back on track". Heh... I'll believe that when I see it :-)

I have a lovely 4 hour stop-over in Heathrow on the way there. Sigh. I am booked business class from Heathrow to Nice which is nice (had to be said) because the flights were so full. That's like less than a 2 hour flight though. Bummer that the flights weren't as full on the Seattle-Heathrow leg... that'd be a comfy flight ;-) C'est la vie.

Anyway - all that matters is that I get there safely, in one piece, have an uneventful week full of meetings, and then come home safely, in one piece. That's all I want. That and a good night's sleep.

Vive la France!

Cannes you do the Can-can?

Woohoo! I'm getting to travel for work! It's been a few years. Last time I had to travel extensively for work was almost 5 years ago and then it was just to other cities in the U.S. Last time I had to travel internationally for work was my trip to London and Paris in 1999.

But now I've got not one but two pretty cool trips coming up.

The first is in Feb for 8 days. I'll be in Cannes, France for an industry conference. I'll actually be staying in Nice, which is nice. (It had to be said.) I've been to France several times, but never to Cannes or Nice. I'm TOTALLY looking forward to it!

The second is in March for 5 days. I'll be heading to New Orleans for another conference. Never been. Should be fun!

Tim is going to take care of the kitties and dogs while I'm gone. I believe his exact words were "I'm going to get the cats back on track". See - I have a bit of a problem with the kitties. It's been going on for a couple of years now. As they've gotten older their feeding habits - actually, their hungry times - have changed. I've always fed them fixed portions at fixed times; I can't leave food out all the time or Spice in particular will gorge himself and explode. So as kittens they would get fed one serving in the morning at breakfast, and one serving in the evening at dinner. When they got a bit older, they stopped wanting to eat in the morning and started getting hungrier at night, so I would feed them two servings each at dinner. When we moved in with Tim, their eating habits changed yet again - and I started feeding them one serving each at 10pm and another each at 11pm so that they wouldn't wake me up at 2am starving and wanting food.

Well now they've discovered that they can still wake me up at 2am starving and in order to preserve my sanity and maintain a decent night's sleep, I'll give in to their wet-noses-in-the-eye and paws-in-the-ear and scalp-kneading, and give them another half portion or so.

So now they're now testing the limits, and it's starting to affect Tim (because invariably now at 2am not only am I getting up to feed them, I'm also muttering "god damn stupid cats" and swearing a lot, which wakes Tim up). They don't bug Tim. They know he is immune to their charms. So while I am gone, Tim's going to "get them back on track". I hope it works :-)

Anyway - Back to Cannes. I found an interesting history of the city at cannes-on-line.com that is worth a read. Not sure if I'll get up the courage to use any of my french while I'm there. It's pretty rusty... could do me more harm than good :-) Ah well. We'll see. At any rate, I'm SOOO excited!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

The snow really let loose last night, turned into freezing rain this morning, then switched to ice pellets, and back to snow briefly before quitting entirely (for the moment). It's below freezing now, our street still hasn't been plowed out, and the slushy snow/ice pellet/rainwater mixture is calf-high.

BUT I'm a happy li'l Canadian cause it's gonna be a WHITE Christmas!

Below are some random photos from our first week at my folks in Simcoe.

Last Sunday Dad took Tim and I to the local arena just blocks from my folks house where we watched the Simcoe Junior C hockey team, the "Simcoe Storm" take on Woodstock in what turned out to be a blow-out victory for Simcoe. The final score was 9-0. It was a blast though to watch, even if it was fairly one-sided :-)

Not far from my parents' house is a gorgeous little park that the town decks out in lights and decorations and little scenes every year. It's really pretty at night, and we've wandered over several times after dinner to take in the lights and watch the kids be mesmerized by the little moving displays.

During the day we'll walk over to the same park to feed the ducks and geese and seagulls. This one nipped me just after the photo was taken because I was clearly NOT tossing the bread fast enough, and didn't I understand he had other things to do, places to be? Hmmph. Or should I say "Honk"!

We also caught a glimpse of a brilliant red cardinal on one of our walks through the park. I love these birds - especially in the snow.

Last night is when it really started coming down. Tim and my Dad set to work shovelling the drive way when we got back from our evening walk to the park. It would prove to be rather fruitless though...

Because this is what we woke up to this morning!

Not that Diva, my folks' princess..er...german shephard minded!

Oh - and Happy Anniversary to my Mom and Dad! Today is their 37th :-)

Looking forward to having Sarah home tomorrow. Roads were just too treacherous for her to get out of Ottawa today. We're on a Lasagna moratorium until she arrives (but that hasn't stopped us from eating well while we've been here :-))

More later. Happy Holidays everyone!

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Hel no, we won't go

For a couple of days this week it looked like I was going to get to travel to Helsinki for work in November. November is probably not the height of tourist season - I imagine it's a little chilly there this time of year. Still -I've never been, so it would have been cool (pun intended). Unfortunately not all of the people we were going to be meeting with would actually be in Helsinki so we all agreed to a conference call instead. Ah well!