Monday, May 31, 2010

The Big Apple

after returning from a quick trip to the big city to the north, i again realized that i have a love/hate relationship with the city. well, i won't go so far as to say 'hate', but "can't see myself living there unless i had a lot of money" doesn't fit.

i was lucky this trip, visiting a friend who used to live in the city to take me off the beaten path, i was able to see a bit more of new york that isn't simply on postcards and movie cliches (though we did see the spot tom hanks and meg ryan had their romantic final embrace in you've got mail in riverside park). but beyond that, what always draws me to the city is the unending plethora of fooding/drinking/social experiences that can be had. it is a foodie's dream...with its 5-star establishments to its hole-in-the-wall joints, there are no bounds to the eating that can be done. and if i was rich, had the time, and didn't care about my appearance, i'd just take a year and eat my way around the entire city. but since i can't do that, it just gives me more of an excuse to come back and venture to other parts of town to dine on new cuisines and drink to my liver's content.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Business Trips

when i was younger, my dad was a frequent business traveler...hopping from city to city, jumping from plane to plane...and i always thought that would be cool. to be a man of the air and to visit so many places. obviously, his excursions were never puddle jumps...unless you consider the pacific ocean a puddle. and a constant 13 hour flight every few weeks can clearly cause a significant amount of stress...which i have always been grateful for my dad to have endured to provide for my spoiled ass.

but now that i'm older and taking business trips of my own (and granted, i only make these trips VERY rarely), i have a new found respect fo the work that he did. as for my experience, work has shipped me out to montana to help educated the locals about what we did in health reform. thus, i've spent the past few weeks setting up meetings, booking hotels, renting cars (yes, i can finally do that legally), and reserving seats on planes.

and now that i'm halfway done with my trip...i've run into a handleful of miseries common to the business traveler. the trip didn't start out great with a meager (but damaging) 30 minute delay out...which meant that, even with my furious race down the terminal, i still missed my connecting flight, stranding me in salt lake city for an extra couple of hours. and getting into my final destination later than expected, my luggage's travel time was not in sync with mine. (normally i would've tried to the 'up in the air' theory of only keeping one carry on, but i haven't mastered the packing needs yet).

travel issues aside, what really gets to you is the constant moving around...hopping from meeting to meeting, conference room to conference room, speaking the same canned response and answering the same common question. all the while finding a restaurant at the end of the day to have a meal alone and then return to a hotel room and sleep in a bed that isn't yours. i've always liked hotels...but after three nights in a strange bed without the mental comforts of home...you do start to feel a bit uncomfortable.

but at the end of the day, i really have no complaints. it is nice to get out of dc and to get out into the real world. and since i don't do this very often, the novelty of it still exists and i'm going to enjoy it while i can.