My Tampa Home

This is the Tampa house where I lived in high school. On New Year's Eve, My friend Nancy Yost (MFNY) and I drove by the house. As we were taking the picture a car drove into the driveway, we were busted. We staopped and chatted with the lady who bought the house from my parents in 2000. Pretty funny, because my old neighbors sold their house to their son, who now lives their and HE drove up while we were chatting. Apparently most people never move far from home.

The house looks much more bland since my family moved out!

Christmas in Florida

Christmas Day was unusually warm, in fact I thought I was going to die! I have become one of those people who can barely stand it when it goes above 75 F. However by the second week I was back to old Florida form, barely flinching when it got to 75 and trooping right through 80. Goodness knows what will happen when I visit in the summer in the future.

Anyway, visiting with the family was grand, Mum and Dad and sister Ceri were all in fine form. Had other visits with friends and lots of lounging around on the back deck. Even had a kayak trip - will figure out where those pictures are and get them posted. In the meantime I have added pictures from the Eastern European tour below.

Happy New Year to one and all, best of wishes for this coming year.

Christmas in Florida, Part II

Some things never change, Mum and Dad enjoying their Christmas morning gifts and no, they didn't mean to be wearing matching shirts!

If it is Thursday this must be Bucharest

We arrived at the Bucharest airport at 15 minutes after midnight. It was a pretty big plan though, so their were a significant number of us jostling toward the cab rank. My crew - now expanded to four of us - jammed into a cab with three across the back seat. This would not have been a problem except because it was so late, there was very little traffic and our driver took off at a very high speed. Unusually, I was not in the middle seat; I say unusually because in most crowds I am the shortest one and the one therefor who gets the "hump." However, my gallant fellow travellers gave me the seat behind the driver, this I was pleasantly unaware of our careening across multiple lanes until "hump" passenger, Andrew, started looking ahead in a very scared way and gripping the seatbacks of the two seats in front of him.

In the front seat along side the driver is Chris who is showing us all three cities. He tells the driver to slow down and the driver does but only for a while, I start paying attention peering around the seat back and noticing that not only is he driving fast but he is also no where near driving in a lane. It was almost like he was a cab driver in Shanghai - in my experience the worst, scariest cab drivers in the world. To distract us from impending death, Chris started pointing out the sights.

Mind you some were REALLY hard to miss. First thing we all noticed was the extraordinary number of car dealerships right outside the airport, very interesting to have Ferraris next to Skoda but all there lined up in a row. The road was huge and wide just like were you would find the car dealerships in suburban Atlanta. Then boom next was a giant collection of stores dominated by Carrefor (which is a French WalMart). Finally we start coming to teh more urban area. signalled by the Arc de Triumf, I swear it was actual size sitting right there in the middle of the roundabout. Turns out it was built in 1922 to memorialise the war dead.

Next up was Ceauşescu Palace. Remember, its probably now about 1:00 or so in the morning, we have been on the go since 8am and traveled here from Prague. This thing looms up to the left as we tear into the city driven by a mad driver. One of us had read a guidebook and piped up with, "Did you know that the Palace is mistakenly called a palace its really supposed to be a government building and is generally considered to be the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon." Looking it up after the trip I discover that factoid is one that everyone quotes, but there are some who say that its actually the third largest behind the Pentagon and the a Pyramid in Egypt. Nice view from the balcony though.

Finally after drag racing around the palace we arrive at our Marriott home. Third night; third Marriott - although this one used to be a guest house for the palace next door. Marriott took it over in 2001. Finally got to bed at 1:30 and guess what the room looked exactly like th eone in Prague and Warsaw - same toiletries, same sheets, same tv. When I woke up I really didn't know where I was until I looked out the window and saw the palace.

If you go to Bucharest - this guide isn't bad.

Day Two and Three, Warsaw and Prague

Since I'm doing this after the fact lets just pretend this is Tuesday last week. I flew from London to Warsaw on Monday, met up with my fellow business folks and went to the Warsaw office met some great people - saw some cool work and had an amazing lunch at a restaurant that served traditional Polish food, U Kucharzy. My wonderful hosts took us there. Wed did not have the famous dish - steak Tartare; but the pirogues were excellent and it was great to watch the chefs. Short walk around the town and then back to the office for more meetings.

Fly that night to Prague, where we once again check into the Marriott. Second night in Central Europe, second night in a Marriott, I swear it was the same room, just different colour schemes. But very well located just outside the old town square so I had a brisk walk before bedtime to enjoy the lights and wonderful architecture. Prague has always been one of my favourite cities even in the dark and freezing cold. I am really struck by how different Warsaw and Prague are. Warsaw was basically destroyed during the WWII and then trashed again during Spring Uprising. Many of the old buildings are rebuilt copies of what stood there before. Significant portions of Prague remained relatively unscathed in the physical architectural sense. My Warsaw hosts said if I wanted to really see what Poland was like before 1940's I should visit Krakow. Must book that flight.

Next day, we head to another office, see another set of projects and meet lots of people all good. Another walk through the city back to the office - another plane ride to arrive at Bucharest at 00:15.

My CEE adventure

I am just back from my tour of CEE (Central and Eastern Europe - apparently lots of folks use that acronym I had never heard it before.)

Now if I could only figure out how to get the pictures out of the phone and onto my computer I could show y'all some touristy stuff. I was an interesting couple of days. Started on Monday by flying to Warsaw and meeting up with the other members of the team -- we were there to meet some company reps of another business. My companions were a guy from corporate parent company and a guy from Abu Dhabi office. Both very nice; we made an interesting crew. Me: planner from Florida, Atlanta, San Francisco, London. Corporate guy: engineer from all over US but most recently Denver and Orange County, CA. Abu Dhabi guy: engineer from Adelaide who had just moved to Abu Dhabi/Dubai to take over a new role. All very different but fairly compatible considering we had just decided to meet up at the Marriott lobby bar in Warsaw.

Turned out fine, we agreed to meet the next day at the coffee shop and meet the Brit who was going to be introducing us to the offices on our three-country tour. Fine, I went for a cold evening stroll passed the culture palace not far from the hotel and was tucked up in my first Marriott bedroom by 10pm.

International Assignee

Just got an email from the parent company of my company (long story) but the gist of it is that as an International Assignee I must choose my 2009 Benefits, you know healthcare and 401K and etc. So its that time of year again, fine. This post is really about the term "international assignee." Its sort of like "resident alien" which is what my Mum and Brother are in the US, here they say you have "indefinite leave to stay." I am always struck by our ability to make up amazing names for things. Its not just the cultural difference of names but how people react to them.

I work for a company that is based in the US but is getting a much larger presence outside the US - so the distinction between domestic and foreign is really a bit strange right now. Technically domestic is here in the UK and foreign is outside the UK because technically we are a plc registered here in the UK and wholly-owned by a US parent which is in turn owned by another US parent. I have been known to get memo requests -- created on letter size paper (aka 8.5x11 inches) which won't print in my A4 world -- asking me for breakdowns of sales in terms of domestic and global clients. What we call "foreign" here in UK would be "global" in the US.

What do you think - foreign or global? and is it a good or bad thing to be an International Assignee?

Ooohh... business trip planned

I can tell my life is getting dull - I'm almost excited by the prospect of an upcoming business trip. I never get excited by business trips, I used to do them all the time. Recently, though I have been assigned to base, as it were, keeping an eye on the looming credit crunch business drop off - or not; kind of depends on the day of the week. Anyway, Just found out that I will be going on an Eastern European fly by night tour to meet some potential business partners. So on Monday I'm flying to Warsaw, Tuesday Prague and Thursday Bucharest.

Sounds exotic but I'm staying in the Marriott in each of these cities - which I think is a bit like going to Paris and eating at a McDonald's but we cannot be picky, can we. By the way I have eaten at McDonald's in Paris and I have nothing against McDonald's; in fact I truly love my fast food - but I think you know where I'm going here.

I'm sure it will be airport, hotel, meeting room, hotel, airport with an interspersing of interesting cab rides. But still could be fun, at least its different from Chicago, West Palm Beach, Charlotte - which was my old business trip stomping grounds. What I really need to check is whether I will get any new passport stamps - Is Romania in the European Union?

oohh I'm off to google Bucharest - its the only one I haven't been to.