Bella Firenze – June 24-25

Since nothing ever goes as planned, it’s fitting that something went wrong first thing in the morning. I was the one who purchased our tickets to Florence – “dad” and I went together – and somehow I ended up purchasing tickets on two different trains. One left at 9:00 and the other left at 10:00. Luckily, even though my f-up was going to cost us at least an hour of exploring, he’s a pretty laid back guy and didn’t give me any of the grief I deserved from it. I took the 9:00 train and he took the 10:00.

The ride was nice. We went through some very pretty country, including some mountains. Well, they were either mountains or just very tall hills. I was quite impressed actually. It was the kind of scenery you only see in movies. It was a long ride though – 2 hours and 45 minutes. I read and listened to the iPod throughout. I’ve never been a huge music fan, but that little gadget is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. It’s like it provides a soundtrack for your life.

I got off the train in Florence and looked around the station for a bit. I didn’t really have to wait a full hour for him to arrive since my train was a little late anyway. I spotted our stop for lunch immediately and bought a map of the city from the tourism office. Then I sat down to study the map and wait. After a while his train showed up. I’m standing there waiting for him at the top of the platform when I notice this older, blonde guy with his shirt unbuttoned down to middle of his chest walking down from where he got off the train. I thought the guy looked incredibly familiar, but I wasn’t sure if he was who I thought he was until some Italian guy next to me started shouting “Great performance. Sting! Great performance!” He sort of smiled vaguely and gave a half-wave, but he looked like he didn’t really want to be bothered. I left him alone. He walked by me no more than five feet away. My second celebrity encounter; the first was in December. I swear Sting is following me. I’m being stalked by a rock star! Cool.

Lunch was at the train station McDonald’s. I haven’t had the Micky D’s since I got here, so I was eager to give it a shot. Plus, I was so hungry I would have eaten fresh road-kill, or track-kill, if someone offered it to me. I’d have even paid.

After lunch we started planning out what we wanted to see and where we wanted to go. There were two items on the must list and everything else was pretty flexible. The plan was to start out and head north to the Galleria dell’Accademia to see “David” and work our way south. It was just a plan, but it was a plan that was going to take a lot of walking. We stepped out of the train station, and I looked over at the bus stop and saw the CitySightseeing tour bus. I’ve never been on one of them, but Lisa did it in London and she loved it. That was a pretty good recommendation to me, so I mentioned that I’d heard they were a great way to see the city and that we should check out their itinerary. Everything we wanted to see and more was on there, so we handed over our 20 euros and climbed on board.

The bus has two lines: A and B. We were limited both in the time we had available to spend in Florence (roughly 8 hours) and the closing time of the bus tour. There was apparently some sort of fireworks show happening that night in Florence and the bus line was going to do the last run at 7:00 rather than stay open until midnight. Incidentally, there was also a fireworks show in Milan that night, although it appears that I’m the only one in my group that realizes it, including the native. I hope I wasn’t imagining those sounds. Going to a mental hospital for a couple of weeks sounds restful, but I really don’t want to actually be a nut. Since we were limited, we chose the A line which stayed mostly in the heart of the city, which was fine with us since that’s where everything we wanted to see was anyway.

The first time we got off the bus was near the Arno River. We’d spotted the river going through and wanted a closer look, so we hopped off the bus and walked a block to the river. I got a few good pictures of the river and Ponte Vecchio. We crossed the bridge and walked down along the banks to Ponte Vecchio. Ponte Vecchio is, I think, a pretty famous bridge in Florence. Most of the city’s best goldsmith’s have their shops there, and really it doesn’t look anything like a bridge to me. It looks like a large set of townhomes built across the river. Very strange and very crowded. From there we walked over to the Galleria degli Uffizi and the plaza outside of it. There was some great sculpture there, including a replica of “David” and a very nice one of Neptune. I hate to say it, but although I was extremely impressed by “David” I liked the Neptune one far more. There was something regal about it that I didn’t feel from “David”.



I almost got run over by a horse and carriage while taking pictures of the statues and all the buildings. I was backing up to try to get this old church completely in frame when I heard the clip-clop of a horse’s feet. I turned around and there he was with his driver grinning maniacally. Ok, the driver wasn’t really doing that, and I think he was trying to turn the horse so it didn’t run me down, but it paints a more interesting picture that way.



From Uffizi we headed back to the bus stop. We passed another building with a series of sculptures inside and stopped to look. I’m not sure if the building or any of the sculptures were anything famous though. Once on the bus we headed to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which is supposed to have one of the best views of Florence. Unfortunately, thanks to the fireworks show we weren’t able to get the best views. Most of the Piazzale was closed off and the police guarding it didn’t look like the forgiving types.

Back on the bus, we went through some interesting neighborhoods and passed the museum where some of Galileo’s telescopes are housed. I’m kind of sorry we didn’t go in to that one. We rode the bus and listened to the tour all the way back to the train station. From there we had two plans, either of which would have worked for us. Plan A was to wait for the bus from the next line to show up and take that tour. Plan B was to wait for the bus we were just on to start moving again and go visit the Galleria Accademia to see David. We opted with Plan B, so we had some time to kill. We decided to up to this item that was on the map but not near any of the tour stops, the Fortezza Da Basso. On the walk over there we decided to cause an international incident by walking through a restricted area. Ok, I guess it wasn’t really all that bad, but we did get stopped by a security guard who told us that way we were going was not for tourists and for Congress only. Shame on us. Eventually we made it over to the Fortezza, but there was some sort of show going on so we couldn’t go in. I’m not all that disappointed actually. If I’m going to look at forts, I’d rather look at castles and such in Germany or Spain. A fort in Italy, even an old fort, doesn’t hold that much appeal for me.

We made our final stop of the day at the Galleria and stood in line to get in. All the guidebooks I’ve read say that the lines to get in are very long, so you should make a reservation. I’d prefer not to be locked in to certain times, so of course I never make reservations. That kept me from seeing the Last Supper, but it didn’t keep me from David. We waited maybe half an hour before getting inside, which I didn’t think was too bad. Then we had to go through a metal detector. Some deranged art critic tried to take a hammer to David in 1991, so now everyone has to pass through the metal detector and there’s a plexiglass barrier around the sculpture.

Florence is a great place for art lovers, but only if you’re really into Renaissance style paintings and sculpture. I’m not. I can appreciate the mastery of the art form by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, etc. – what’s the other TMN Turtle’s name? – but the work itself doesn’t speak to me. I can only take looking at it for a couple of seconds. Put me in front of a Matisse or Picasso and I can hang for a while, but Renaissance art sort of falls on deaf eyes. That being said, David is a pretty awesome piece of work. It’s huge! Easily 20 feet tall not counting the base, which must add another 5 or 6 feet on to that. It’s also very detailed. You can see the veins and tendons in his hands and pick out individual muscles. A definite must see if you find yourself in Florence.

After abandoning the Galleria we walked about a quarter of a mile down the street to the Duomo. I really like this one. Its façade is very different from the cathedrals in London, York, and even Milan. This one looks like something more out a storybook. I wish we had gone in. The innards of a cathedral are usually just as interesting as the outside.



That was it for us. The city was about to close down for the fireworks, and we were both hot, nasty, and tired. I was also sporting a seriously impressive sunburn. We caught the bus back to the train station, changed our reservations to an earlier train, stopped by McD’s for dinner and headed back to Milan. I slept most of the way – well, dozed actually. I doubt anyone can actually sleep on a train unless they’ve got one of the sleeper cars.

Sunday was a day of rest, and by that I mean I didn’t leave the hotel until dinner at 7:45. I actually only left my room once and that was for the five minutes it took for me to go up the executive lounge and snag a couple of bottles of water and a Pepsi to go along with my lunch. I should have gotten out and done a little souvenir shopping, but I didn’t. Oh, well. I’ll find something sometime before I leave.

Return of Ugly Naked Guy and Sting! – June 20-23

The work week went through with no real excitement. Working internationally is a lot like working in the home office, I just happen to be in a different country.

Like I said, the week was pretty unexciting, until Friday that is. Friday at lunch we were sitting there in the cafeteria talking about American television with our Italian translator. CSI is very popular here. So is Lost. The Sopranos is just starting up, which is weird since it’s been around 10 or so years at home. All of the sudden there’s a commotion at the table next to us. Everybody was turning around to look up and out the window and there were a lot of exclamations of surprise and laughing. So I turned around to see what all the commotion was about. I mostly saw sky until I looked at the apartment building next door. There was a guy standing out on his balcony with a newspaper in his tidy whities. I think he’d noticed everyone looking at him because he was looking back at us. But there he was, hanging out on his balcony in his underwear. And lest you think this was some beautiful Neapolitan god hanging out in his underwear, this guy was more of the fat and hairy version than the slim and suave type. It was a good laugh.

I found out on Friday at that same lunch that Sting was going to be in town playing at the plaza around the Duomo. I debated going for a long time, but in the end it was one of those things where you have to say that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and you’d be an idiot to pass it up. So around 9:00, after dinner, I and “dad” caught the subway down to downtown. The plaza was insanely crowded. I couldn’t being to estimate the number of people there, but it was more than 10 and probably less than 100,000. We had to sit through three songs from some random Italian band. I have no idea if they were good or not, since it all sounded pretty jumbled to me. After that we had to sit through an interview with them and them a whole bunch of excerpts from Sting interviews while his roadies set up the stage. Then he got on. We only stayed to listen to three songs, one of which was Message in a Bottle. I don’t know what the other two were even though I was familiar with the songs. It was really crowded and I couldn’t see anything, so we decided to take off. Besides, I needed to catch some sleep before we trained off to Florence.

Padre e Figlio – Last Saturday

I just remembered something that happened to me on Saturday that I didn’t put in my update. When we got out of the subway station at il Duomo, we were immediately stopped by some African guy that wanted to give us “friendship” bracelets. I eventually got one because another guy later wouldn’t leave me alone and he was willing to keep walking and tying while I walked away. He got no euros out of me. Anyway, this first guy hounded us for a couple of minute telling us that it was free and it was just for friendship. Whatever.

I’m traveling with two other guys. One of them is in his late 50s or maybe his 60s. I don’t know which. I’m told he’s actually not as old as he looks, but I just find it hard to believe. The other guy is maybe a couple of years older than me. I’ll put the upper limit of his age at 37, and that’s pushing it. So the African guy finally lost us completely when he asked if I wanted a bracelet for me and my father. First of all, what self-respecting 30-something gets matching thread bracelets with his father, in any culture? Second, you might think he was talking about the older guy with me, but you’d be wrong. He was actually calling the guy that’s just a couple of years older my father. He said we look alike. I don’t see it, but maybe that was just his pitch. At first I just felt incredulous that he thought we were that far apart in age. I know I don’t look 33, but I didn’t think I looked like a teenager. I don’t get carded when I go for a drink anymore, so I must look at least older than 25. And “dad” doesn’t look all that old either. Like I said, the upper limit of his age is 37, and I know that would be too high. After getting over the incredulous feeling I started calling him dad, but only for a few minutes. I don’t want to rub something like that in too much.

Um… Did the power go out? – June 19

Ok, so it’s not really normal for me to post an entry for a single day. Not enough interesting happens every day on one of these trips. It’s usually the same old routine: get up, shower, go to work, work/lunch/work with liberal surfing inserted randomly (or maybe it’s intense work inserted randomly into the liberal surfing), back to hotel, 2-hour dinner, talk to family, go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. But tonight, something a little more interesting happened.

Let’s not get too overtly specific about things, but I was in the bathroom. The door was closed and there I was doing my thing when I hear this loud popping sound right outside the bathroom door and the lights all go out. Of course there’s no window in the bathroom either. It’s on the hall side of the room rather than the outside world side. Good thing I had my cell phone in my pocket or I wouldn’t have been able to see anything. Unfortunately, it didn’t provide enough light for me to get situated to go out in the room area and figure out what the hell was going on, so I fumbled around and got the door opened. I finished doing my business, washed my hands (VERY important, too many people don’t recognize the importance of a little soap and water after any kind of bathroom event) and went out to start flipping switches. I flipped the ones next to the bathroom off and on again a couple of times, nothing happened. I went over to the bed and flipped the switches there a couple of times, still nothing. Finally, I gave in and called the front desk to ask if there was a problem. They said that someone would be right up to look at things. A couple of seconds later, no more than 30 max, the lights all just popped on again. So I called the front desk and told them not to bother sending anyone, everything was apparently cool. They said “ok, thanks” and hung up. I put the phone down, and the lights went out so fast it was almost like they were connected to the handset. So I called the front desk again and asked them to send someone up anyway. Hang up, lights on. Grrrr.

After a couple of minutes, the Mr. Fixit guy shows up. All the lights are off at this point and I’m wandering around in the dark because I’m not smart enough to open up the drapes and let a little natural light in. As soon as I open up the door, the lights come on. He tells me to put the key in the slot next to the door, which I haven’t had to do for the entire first week, and says that it has to be there all the time for the lights to work. Shut door, lights stay on. I pull out the card, and the lights stay on… for just long enough for me to get across the room to the desk and sit down. Then they turned off. So I went back over and stuck the key in the door. Everyone’s happy now that I’ve got the key in the slot. The lights are happy because they have something that says “this room is occupied.” I’m happy because the lights are happy, and I should remain that way until the time comes that I forget to take the key with me when I leave. That’ll probably be tomorrow.

Milan in a day - June 17-18

Much like the title says, I saw pretty much all I wanted and was able to see of Milan in just one day. Significantly less then a full day actually, but what I saw was pretty damn cool.

Being Saturday, my coworkers and I all decided to sleep in a little bit. I hadn’t really planned on having company while I toured, but I’m a flexible kind of guy, and they were willing to go places I suggested, so we got along just fine. The first stop was the Metro station to get a ticket for the subway, underground, metro, whatever it’s called here. There was a little confusion there. First we wanted to buy tickets at the electronic kiosk, but we couldn’t make it speak English. Then there was confusion caused by the person selling the tickets who said that you could only get an all-day pass at the next station up the line. Then he reversed himself when I asked for a ticket to that station. Finally, we got tickets, and proceeded to the next challenge: figuring out which train we needed to take to get down to il Duomo station, which is conveniently located in the plaza right in front of one of Milan’s two most visited tourist sites.

Il Duomo is a fairly large cathedral, and it’s very intricate. There are lots of little carvings on the towers, of which there are over 100 I believe. I think that’s what I read. We walked through the inside. It wasn’t as crowded with monuments and other bric-a-brac as St. Edwards in London or the York Minster, but there was a significant portion of unused space. For such a large building it was actually a pretty small church. The inside was dark, and even after I’d finally figured out why my camera was taking such bad pics and changing the settings a little bit, none of them came out all that great. The flash just didn’t light things up very well. We walked around the inside for about half and hour or 45 minutes being nasty tourists and taking pictures, which I’m sure disturbed the worshippers. If I were one of them I’d be annoyed that these people were trampling through my holy place and taking pictures. I think everybody was being respectful, but you know there’s going to be someone who’s not.

After walking around the inside, we did a quick walk around the outside to take some more shots and then coughed up our four euros each to climb the steps to the roof. It’s free to get in, but you have to pay 4-6 to climb on top of it. In retrospect, it might have been worth it to pay the extra two euros to take the elevator. The steps went on so long that I kind of wondered if I’d died and this was my punishment. Once up top it was all worth it. I have some pictures, which I may put up at some point, but probably won’t. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll send you some. The top of the Duomo was pretty cool. You get to see the tower carvings closer up, but that’s not really the coolest thing about it. It’s just the way it looks, like it’s out of some sort of fairy tale or something. It all looked very delicate and very cool. We stayed up there for an hour or so just looking around and taking pictures. Rather than climb down we decided to be dishonest and take the elevator. Really though, it makes sense. Make everyone pay to climb – that way they get their exercise – and let everyone take the elevator down. This will prevent some of the backups on the stairs that we had to endure on the way up.

After we got down it was time for a nice bottle of water and some food. So we wandered around a bit looking for a bite and finally settled in this nice little outdoor café where no one spoke a word of English. We had a nice leisurely lunch and I said something about seeing the Parlour of Milan, which everyone sort of agreed to. Truth to tell it was right over by our subway stop, which I knew full well. There’s a fountain area outside the parlour with lots and lots of pigeons. I started walking away from the parlour toward the fountain t get a good look, and picture, of the building. So while I’m there these two guys grab my hand and put birdseed in them. Now I’m covered in pigeons. I had two thoughts going through my head. Thought 1: bird flu. Thought 2: Please don’t let these filthy beasts crap on me. Then these guys start hassling me for money. Apparently the little bit of birdseed and corn pieces they put in my hand warranted 5 euros each. That’s what they thought at least. I didn’t want to argue that much, but I’m not paying that much for the honor of having a bird on my hand. Certainly not when their cost of sales on that one couldn’t amount to more than a couple of cents each. I gave them each two and walked away. Actually, I gave one guy four and let the other guy hassle him about it. That way I only ended up paying $5 to make them go away and guy two was so busy hassling guy one for his share of the take that he let me go without saying anything. I am smart. S-M-R-T.

We stopped at a souvenir stand and I saw a paperweight of the Castello Sforenzo, which was tentatively on my list of things to see. I made a quick suggestion, figured out which stop we needed to get off at and we headed on our way. The castle wasn’t terribly impressive, but I’m glad I went. I like castles almost as much as I like cathedrals. We skipped all the castle museums and just walked around the place a little bit.

After that it was time to try to find the grand-daddy of all interesting things in Milan and probably the hardest to get in to see. It was also the one item on my list that I was least likely to get to see: Leonardo DaVinci’s “Last Supper”. The train stop was only the next one up the line, so we decided to hoof it. We walked, and walked, and walked, and walked. We had a map, but not knowing the lay of the land and me not being a boy scount, it was hard to tell which way was east, west, north, or south. So we’d compare the map to street names to see if we were going in the right direction, which seems logical. I only saw one street name on both the map and the street the entire time until we finally gave up and asked a couple of passing ladies where the Ultima Cena was. Of course I’d led us in the wrong direction. If I say “trust me” about a direction, do yourself a favor and go the opposite way. Well, we found the church where the last supper is, but we didn’t actually get in to see it. There were no tickets available until the end of July. I knew I was going to be here well in advance. I wonder why I didn’t book a spot when I had the chance.

Slightly disappointed, we made our way by foot and train back to the hotel. Sunday was a day of rest. We all stuck to ourselves except for dinner. I pretty much stayed in my room the whole day and read. I’d like to say I did something useful, like CPA studying or something like that, but no, I read. It was a good book, too. I’m pretty glad I did it.

So next weekend I’m considering going to Florence. It’s only a 2-3.5 hour train ride. Tickets appear to cost 28 euros in both directions. I can leave to go at 9am and come back on the 9pm train, which would get me back to the hotel around midnight. I don’t have a whole lot longer to think about it. I’ll probably need to book my reservation no later than Wednesday. At this point though, it’s looking pretty good.

When the moon hits your eye... - June 12-16

Well, after getting a good night’s sleep after my harrowing 17-hour journey from Dallas to Milan, I’m almost, sort of, kind of, maybe ready for work. I’m not committing to anything though.

The week went well, I suppose, considering that once I got here I really didn’t want to be here. I usually feel like I wish I was home when I’m on these trips, but there was more to it this week. Perhaps it was the jet-lag. I was told it would probably catch up to me by Wednesday, but maybe I was experiencing little problems with it throughout the week, culminating with a BIG finish on Thursday. That’s when the jet-lag really reached up and smacked me. Anyway, despite my fatigue and my desire to be someplace else, home, I did get some work done. Probably not as much as I could have, but any little bit of work I get done in week one is work that I don’t have to do in week two.

I’ll mention a couple of things here. Milan is not the prettiest place in the country. Most of the residents have told me that there’s not really a whole lot to see here and that I should probably go visit Venice or Florence on the weekend. Now, that could just be a case of familiarity breeding contempt, but they’re not the only ones that say that. I bought “Italy for Dummies” before I left, and there’s not a whole lot in there about Milan. It’s the financial capital of Italy. It’s the fashion capital, too. In fact, someone said that our last week here is supposed to be fashion week. Someone else also said that fashion week isn’t until August, which makes both a little sense and no sense at all. August is typically vacation month – they say everything shuts down except for things like video and grocery stores. So it would be good for fashion week to be here in August because no one else is. On the other hand, no one’s here! Why would you hold a fashion show in a place where no one was at? See makes perfect sense and no sense at all. That being said, there are a few things out there to see, and I got a brief glimpse of them on Wednesday night. More on that later.

I usually include some sort of commentary on the drivers. I don’t know if I do it intentionally, but I will this time. I was told that driving in Milan was more scary than driving in London, Buenos Aires, or Mexico City. Wrong! Driving in Milan is actually almost sane. They’re reasonably courteous to the other cars, although there is still a sort of “me first” attitude like there have been in all the other places I’ve been. Actually, we kind of have that attitude in Dallas if you look at it. We’re always cutting each other off. Then there are the bikers. I’m going to lump all people that ride motorized two-wheel vehicles under this class. There are some bicyclers, but there are so few and they’re so slow that they don’t really count. In the states, at least in Texas, motorcycle riders have to be extra careful about their surroundings. We live in the land of big cars. It’s hard to see a motorcycle when you’re up in a Hummer. That’s not the case here. I haven’t seen anything bigger than your standard mini-van and very few of those. Most cars around here are probably the size of Honda Civics or Ford Focuses. They have some that are much smaller, like half the size of a Focus, called a Smart car. Wonder when those will make it to America. Anyway, they’re on the same level as the bikers, so that helps. What really helps is the sheer number of bikers. Ok, maybe you could miss the bike ahead of you, but there’s no way you could miss it, the one behind you, the one passing you on the left and the one passing you on the right. And you definitely wouldn’t miss the one that slipped in between you and the car in front of you while you were stopped at the light! I feel like the bikers are like that guy on the bridge in Spiderman who told the Green Goblin that if he messed with one he messed with all of them.

So Wednesday we went downtown to where all the touristy stuff is. I don’t really know why, since I was already planning on going down there over the weekend. We saw il Duomo and the Parlour of Milan. We had dinner outdoors at this little restaurant. More of our dinners have been outside than inside. The weather is perfect for that. I wouldn’t even consider having an 8:00 dinner outside at home. That’s just crazy talk. Anyway, I’ll revisit the tourist stuff in another entry. The sights deserve some love of their own.

Per piacere e grazie – June 10-11

I am now resting and relaxing in Milan. Or maybe not resting or relaxing, but I am in Milan.

I was a complete moron when planning this trip. I listened to people I shouldn’t have and planned my trip based on their recommendations and advice when I could have saved myself a lot of time and aggravation if I’d just done my research and planned my own trip. I’m so lazy that way. I let other people tell me how I should get somewhere all the time rather than put in a little effort and save myself some trouble later. Anyway, I made it to Milan just fine, and – ginormous surprise – so did my luggage.

The first leg of my trip took me from DFW to O’Hare. That wasn’t too bad. It’s only a four-hour flight. This was the first time I’d ever been to O’Hare airport. I’ve been to Chicago many times – I used to have family that lives there. I got off the plane and started to make my way to the next gate for my connecting flight to London. Turns out there’s a problem with the plane and the flight has been delayed for about 40 minutes. That’s not too bad, at least it means that I won’t have as long of a layover in Heathrow.

So, thinking I had all the time in the world I made my way toward the gate and stopped to get some McDonald’s and a Cinnabon. I love Cinnabons. They’re wonderful. You’ve got doughy bread, sweet sugar, and, the most important part, cinnamon. I had my lunch and wandered over to the gate. After sitting there for a while wishing I could find an outlet near a chair so that I could whip out my computer, I put on my iPod and began to listen to an audiobook. I pulled out a headphone every once in a while when I thought I heard the check-in people say something interesting. They said the plane would be delayed even longer, like until 7:00 or so, so I put the headphones on and stopped paying attention. That was almost a big mistake. After a while I looked up and noticed a bunch of people lining up in front of MY gate. I went over and discovered that they had been boarding for the last couple of minutes. First and Business were already on board, as well as most of the groups. Well, I joined right in and got up to the head of the line. Unfortunately, it seemed that my ticket was no good and I had to go to the desk and get my new ticket.

I got bumped from Business class… Bumped UP! I made the trip from Chicago to London in style! The seat was spacious. First class holds a maximum of 16 people. The seats lay down flat so that you’re laying down rather than reclining. Very nice. I wonder why I got moved to First instead of someone else. I’m sure there was someone else on the plane that would have been ahead of me in points. Never look a gift-horse in the mouth, the saying goes. I just sat back and enjoyed it all the way across the ocean.

Once in London I swiftly made my way to the Admiral’s Club, or the BA equivalent that is, cursing my phone and T-Mobile all the way. I went out of my way to purchase a phone that would work internationally and gone ahead and paid the extra $20 per month so that I would still be able to send and receive email while I’m in a foreign country, and the damn phone wouldn’t work! No matter how many times I turned it on and off, it still wouldn’t connect to any service, and I know that UK has T-mobile. I almost bought an extra phone from one of the stores there last time I was there just so I would have something that worked.

After relaxing in the club for two hours or so, I finally got to get on with the last leg of my journey. A quick four hours later in what basically amounted to the first-class cabin of a SWA jet and I was in Milan, dirty and dead tired. I fell asleep several times on the way to the hotel, and I don’t think the driver appreciated it too much. Every time I started to nod off he would pick up his cell and call someone, or there was suddenly something he had to listen to louder on the radio, or he would hit the brakes a little harder. He just did something to wake me up.

I got into my room at the hotel and immediately hated it. I had no decent ‘net connection, and that’s vital to me. The room was dark and smelly. I had a lovely view of the roof of the lobby area. It was just a bad room. I stuck with it for about half an hour before I called the front desk and asked them to change me to a different room. And what a difference that makes. It’s no bigger, but it feels lighter. I have a better view, although there’s really not a whole lot to see on this side of town. I guess the connection strength of the ‘net (it’s all wireless, which they tell me I can use anywhere in the hotel) connection gets better the higher you go. I’m just generally happier with it. So, I’m in, I’ve showered (and that’s something everyone around

Whoa Mexico – April-May 2006

Since around mid-April, I have basically been immersed in Mexican culture.

It started off with a trip with Lisa to Puerta Vallarta. Man, I miss that. Beautiful hotel, beautiful pool, and any place with a beach has got to be good. We spent four heavenly days relaxing by the pool and sipping on froo-froo drinks. We only ventured out once and that was to take a guided tour of the city. That was nice. We saw the cathedral of Maria de Guadalupe, had lunch in the mountains at some place near where they filmed Predator, and took a tour of a tequila factory. Mosty, we just sat by the pool and read. We hopped in every once in a while, but it was mostly just sitting next to it. After dinner every night we kicked off shoes and took a walk along the beach, and then we went back up to the room and sat on the balcony and watched the pool and the ocean. We got a fireworks show every night from this returning pirate ship show that’s offered as an excursion through the hotel concierge. I think they serve other hotels in the area and the cruise ships too. I think it would be hard for the pirates to make a living just off of our little hotel.

Speaking of the hotel, it was by far one of the nicest I’ve ever been in. It was definitely the nicest oceanfront hotel I’ve stayed in. One thing they did that I really liked is have tile everywhere. Most hotels you go into have carpeting in the rooms. That’s great if you’re staying in Dallas or some other landlocked city, but when you’ve got people tracking in sand from the beach, the carpets tend to get a little funky. And they always feel wet thanks to the humidity and wet feet. No, tile is the way to go. It was also very open. The rooms were all air conditioned, but the halls were open to the outside. They were still inside, though. I don’t want anyone to get the impression that this was like a Motel 6 or something. It was an enclosed building with a roof and everything, but the ground floor was left open to the outside, and it really added something to the overall atmosphere. That and the fountain and glass elevators. I really miss Puerta Vallarta. The only complaint about the trip that I could possibly make wouldn’t actually be valid since I knew what to expect before I got there. The water in the ocean wasn’t the crystal clear blue that you could get in the Caribbean or even on the other side of the bay. Sadly, it was a muddy brown type water with poor visibility. That was really ok with me though. I’m not really all that keen on going into the ocean, so I was more than content just to swim in the pool. You rarely ever find swimming pool sharks, and with all the chlorine in pool water you can feel safe that no germ can survive too long. My advice: book yourself to the Puerta Vallarta Marriott as soon as possible.

So that was my first visit to Mexico. I’d also say that it’s my best visit to Mexico. I’ve been to other towns before, but that was the best trip.

Since PV I have spent two weeks in Mexico City for work. My report on Mexico City is both good and bad. The good: it’s very pretty. There are a lot of trees there, more than I ever expected to find in a city. Really, I thought all cities pretty much looked like Dallas, New York or London: concrete jungles. Mexico City is most definitely not like that. It looks more like a jungle with concrete growing out of it. There are trees everywhere, and lots of very nice looking parks. Every day when we’re going back from the office to the hotel we pass a group of people, mostly men or boys, playing futbol in the park. They look like they’re having a lot of fun. We’re also staying in a fairly nice part of town, with a Starbucks just about a block away. I’ve decided that the mark of a good hotel is that there is a Starbucks nearby or one actually in the hotel. If the hotel serves Starbucks coffee or effectively has one in the lobby even if it’s called something else, then that works just as well. Now, the bad: Mexico City is more than a little seedy. We’ve been very strongly urged not to venture out exploring much beyond the hotels next door because there is a lot of crime there. I think we may be safe in a group, but even so I try to keep alert to what’s going on around me. I learned two things earlier today: 1. 90% of the population of Mexico City has experienced the thrill of being held up at gun-point, and 2. a lot of the citizens always make sure to carry at least a little cash so that when it is their turn to be mugged they at least have a donation available. Or maybe it’s a “don’t shoot me” fee. Another problem is the smell. We went to a flea market – incidentally, I now understand why it’s called a “flea” market – where they sell a lot of pirated DVDs. I thought there was a chance that they might have either “The DaVinci Code” or “X-Men 3” but those were apparently just a little too new. I wouldn’t have bought either of them, just for the record. I can’t imagine that the quality would be terribly good, and I still feel like buying pirated movies would be like stealing from myself. They did have a lot of fairly new releases though. I also discovered smells – none of them good – that I don’t think I believed could even exist. I imagine it’s what Chewbacca was smelling when he jumped into the trash compactor in Star Wars. Maybe worse than that.

The final week of my trip to Mexico City has come and gone. It was actually a much less stressful week than usual. That’s mostly because I was pretty much done with all of my stuff by the time Monday rolled around. I got a couple of “attaboy’s” for my work, which I have to admit I was very proud of. I finally feel like I might be getting the hang of this thing.

Less stressful than usual, however, does not mean stress-free. The VP came into town on Thursday. As usual, he asked questions that I never even thought to ask. I spent most of the day Thursday trying to track down answers for him. I shouldn’t feel too bad though. It’s not like the one’s who reviewed my work thought of them either. And it’s not just me that he has that effect on, I think. He seems to ask a lot of questions that other people don’t think to ask. Perhaps that’s why he’s the boss and we all work for him.

The pre-exit dinner was fun, although just a bit on the long side. The Finance Director picked us up from the hotel at 6:45 and we didn’t return until after 12:30. Huh, I’ve been thinking that it was a five-hour dinner when it was actually almost six. Funny. We had a good time, and it was one of the best meals we had. I think that when you order something and you’re not surprised by the result you’ve had a good meal. Taste and presentation also go along with that, but some of the worst meals I’ve had have been because I was expecting one thing and got another. We had good food and good company. I spent most of the night talking movies and politics. I’m told politics are one of the things you should never talk about when you’re in a foreign country, but it’s not like I was talking about their politics. I was pretty much talking about US politics and agreeing and disagreeing with them on that basis. We didn’t even touch on the upcoming elections for the Mexican Presidency.

After the dinner portion of the evening was over, we sat around the table until they actually asked us to go to the bar and continue there. So we gathered around a little table next to the piano. It must have been late already because I only remember piano guy playing two songs and then bailing. Tequila flowed freely. There were cigars from a country that I’m not allowed to go to. More conversation, of course. Around 11:15 you could kind of tell that everyone hit the wall. Well, almost everyone. I think the Mexico GM could have gone on all night. Everyone else sort of seemed to slow down and you could tell that the thoughts of the American guests were turning towards bed and the unenviable task of packing to go home.

We finally got back to the hotel and I called home. Instead of making it a quick goodnight and gotten to the packing and sleeping, we stayed on the phone for an hour or so. Then I packed and finally got to bed around 3:00am. I didn’t think that was a brilliant idea, since the exit conference the next day was basically going to be the Larry Show. I guess I managed to get the sections with the most problems, so about 75% of the talking was done by your’s truly. I think I came off fairly well. I’m sure some of it could have been better, but either lack of sleep or actual knowledge of the material (not likely) made me a fairly lucid and intelligent speaker. Who knows, maybe I actually am getting better at this.

So now I’m home. I’ve got about a week before I head out again. The good news is that this next trip is the last I’m scheduled for this year, as the schedule currently stands. The bad news is that it’s three weeks long and no coming home on the weekends. Ok, I guess in all fairness I should say that the other bit of good news is that it’s actually in Italy, which I’ve always wanted to go to. I’ve got some plans for the trip, but it remains to be seen if I can manage to do everything I want to do with the time I have available. I’ll keep you posted.