Misplaced

I’ve lost my voice.  Maybe I lost it on the plane.  More likely I misplaced it somewhere in the packing frenzy that took place the night before I left.  Will someone please FedEx it over here so I quit sounding like a wounded seal?

I woke up Monday morning and discovered my loss.  Not surprising since I had woken up Sunday with a sore throat, sat for 11 hours in germ infested airplanes and then proceeded to be left out in the lovely English weather (much like Seattle, only the overcast skies are MUCH more oppressive.  Not sure how.  They just are.) in front of the Avis desk riding herd on all of our luggage while my co-workers took their sweet time programming the GPS (we call it Jane).  So my first day at work, meet and greet day, I pretty much just prayed that everyone could understand my broken American English.

This morning however, my sound of thirteen year old boy going through puberty had been replaced by a more refined Demi Moore type raspyness accompanied by a cough that sounds like aforementioned wounded seal.  Sigh.

Other than that, we’re having a wonderful time.  We rented two cars, and two preferred drivers have emerged out of our group of six.  Unfortunately, I’m one of them.  It seems the general consensus is that if I can drive a fire truck, surely I can handle driving a Mercedes C-class around several multi-lane roundabouts with all of my controls on the opposite (including my seat) side of what I’m used to.  Brilliant.  Oh, and when  you get off the roundabout, please try not to drive into oncoming traffic.  Simple.  I would like to apologise in advance for all past and future years I have shaved off the lives of the residents of Bedfordshire.  Seriously.

(Actually, I’ve been secretly having alot of fun with the driving thing, and am getting the hang of it.  No use telling my co-workers that.  Ruins the fun.)

More on all of that later though.  Time to go out to dinner with the group.  Not sure what’s on the agenda.  Last night was an amazing little wine bar/restaurant in Milton Keynes.  Maybe my voice is hiding somewhere in a pint.  I’m off to check.

 

Off again, off again

Saturday I’m taking off again for work.  This time to the UK.  We’ll be about an hour north of London in Ampthill which I believe is a town in Bedfordshire.  I’m very excited about this trip, especially since two of my favorite people (AmericanMum and her husband) have been contemplating moving to England for a while now.  Hearing and reading about their experiences has made me long to have a few myself.  Although we’ll be attempting to complete a month’s worth of work in 9 days, we will have a weekend in between to play.  Any suggestions? 

 

College in the Working World: The Recipe

This has been the most bizarre week ever.  Well, not EVER, but it’s definitely up there.  Here’s the recipe:

Take an airplane landing from hell.  Add in one mid-week “team bonding” drink drunk-fest (combine one 1/2 price wine night with a Great Create-A-Shot Contest).  Mix well.  Toss in a generous helping of  hangover, and another installment of “The only job offer ever arranged by Instant Message”.  Add in about 10 bottles of water and a Gatorade.  You know, to re-hydrate.

Marinate the above in a gallon of Office Drama with a pinch of Big Boss Sets You Up to Throw Your Lead Under A Bus (you can find it in most senior management offices), but only after you throw in a whisper of Wanna Go to the UK Next Month?  Refrigerate for long enough to miss your flight home.

Bake at 350 for five days in a three hour time difference.  Voila!  There you have it.  The only job I know of that is a grown-up version (heh) of every [fond] memory I have of WAZZU.

 I’m just sayin’.

 

Touch and Go

I fly a lot.  Actually that’s an understatement.  To put it in perspective, I’ve flown 54,000 miles since January 1.  Of this year.  In all of the time I’ve been in the air/airport, I’ve seen my share of delays, turbulence, and touchy landings.

Maybe it’s the fatalist attitude one must have when they choose to go into burning buildings for fun, but I’ve never really worried about anything ever happening to me on an airplane (not even when I watched an engine spontaneously combust from my window seat while we were still at the gate).  Or anywhere at all, for that matter.  Until tonight.

As I’m sure many of you have heard, the East Coast is experiencing yet another weather phenomenon.  Growing up in Eastern Washington State, 40-50mph winds don’t really phase me.  Spending the past two years in Seattle, driving rain doesn’t give me pause either.  However, I’ve never had both of those lovely weather events happen at the same time that I (and about 140 other souls) was trying to land in an Airbus A-320 at Dulles airport.

Normally, my favorite part of sitting in the window seat is watching takeoffs and landings.  Maybe it’s my geeky side, but I like to play a game and approximate the time it takes between when I first see runway pavement to the first bump of wheels down.  Tonight, as we made a very wobbly descent through the rain-soaked blackness, all I could think was “I don’t think so, I don’t think so!”….and then we rose back up into the night…..”Whew!  I didn’t think so!”

As we circled the airport for a second try at runway 1R(ight), I actually contemplated my existence.  What if?  Have I accomplished all I’m meant to accomplish?  Before I could truly answer that question for myself, my thoughts turned to the 33 lives that were lost today at Virginia Tech.  Thoughts of those that were students, lives that were cut short before they could start on the journey of adulthood.  Thoughts of those that were professors, dedicated to shape those young minds for years to come.  All so senseless.

As we landed on that second try and cheers went up from the cabin, I was grateful.  Grateful that I could, if nothing else, send my thoughts and prayers to the family and friends that lost a loved one today.  And grateful that I could spend another day getting one step closer to completing my own journey.

 

Is that what I think it is?

OK.  Take a look up.  A little farther to the image at the top of the page.  Stop.  You are now looking at a picture I took a few weeks ago of Jerusalum from Mount Scopus.  As in Israel. 

 As ironic as it may seem for a semi-Catholic girl (whose father was so scarred by the nuns when he was a boy that he vowed never to force HIS children child to go to chatecism) to have the first stamp in her passport be from the Holy Land, this was an amazing trip. 

When I first heard that work was sending me to Tel Aviv for a week-long business trip, I was a little concerned.  If the all-knowing American press was to be belived (heh), this trip was going to consist of non-stop shuttles between the office and the hotel.  Do not pass “Go”.   Fortunately for us, CNN is not the place to get the scoop on visiting that part of the Middle East.

Everything was amazing.  The accommodations, the people, the food, the country, even the mud was nothing short of wonderful.  Outside of work, we were fortunate enough to squeeze in a day tour of Jerusalem on the front-end of our trip, and stayed over the weekend to visit Masada and the Dead Sea.  On the way home, we did a quick overnight in Frankfurt, Germany.  Who would have thought that the first bar we came across was an Irish Pub full of New Zelanders and American G.I’s singing Karaoke?  Go figure.

Amazingly enough, I was nowhere near ready to come home.  If only they knew how to put ice in drinks.  Forget kissing U.S. soil when I touched down in Chicago.  I headed straight for the airport lounge and an iced soda.

Update:  Pictures are up.  Links to the slideshows for each place we visited above.  Enjoy. -J