London- Round 2

With free time in hand, we headed back to London. Having been sorely disappointed the last time I visited, I had vowed to make the most of my trip this time. Since I was making the arrangements, I actually booked a very nice hotel right in Trafalgar Square. We planned to arrive in the early evening on Friday and meet my boss’s friend for dinner. Saturday was my free day, which I was going to get up early and see as much as I could before flying out Sunday morning for home.

We had dinner at Gaucho Grill again, which was just as fantastic as the first time I had visited. The rain had let up, and the next day had promised to be even better. And even though I was a “third wheel” for the evening, I had a great time with the girls. We stayed out a bit longer than I would have liked, but I figured a little sleep, a nice breakfast, and my giddiness would overcome anything.

How wrong I was.

I woke up the next morning at 7:30 and went straight for the shower. I felt a little off, but figured I must have had a little more to drink the night before than I thought. It was a little bit of a challenge, but managed to get myself cleaned up and ready to hit the day. After all, I was supposed to meet the girls for breakfast and then start my London adventure. I headed for the dresser and BOOM! Something hit me. All I remember is walking out of the bathroom, seeing the bed, and collapsing into it.

About 4 hours later I regained consciousness, writhing in pain. My stomach was in knots, and I literally felt like the alien was going to pop out of my torso. I managed to roll over and saw my Blackberry on the nightstand with messages waiting. I figured to see the “Where the hell are you?” message, but instead got the “Man down”…my boss was in the same boat.

Both of us spent the entire day going from the bed to the bathroom and back to the bed. The only thing that I’ve ever experienced that was worse was passing a kidney stone. There were times I literally thought I was going to die. Thank god for Pay Per View movies and a concierge that ran out and got us both bottles of Gatorade. Finally about 8pm I started to feel a bit better, but that was short lived once I looked at the room service menu. I was finally able to keep a Snickers I had in my laptop bag down…and that became breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the day.

The next morning, we both felt like someone had punched us in the kidneys. It was difficult to stand upright, let along walk. To this day we still aren’t sure what happened. It could have been food poisoning, but Mo’s friend that went to dinner with us ate the exact same things we did and had no ill effects. The cabbie that took us to the airport said there was a nasty bug that had been floating around, which this could have been as well.

All I know is, it was miserable and even though I’ve been to London twice I’ve really not seen any of the city.

I am seriously upset about that fact. I just hope my UK division starts selling soon so I can justify another trip over there and hopefully see something.

Scotland and the Audi A4 2.0L TDI

After an entire week of back to back trainings, we headed to Glasgow for our last day. I busted out two quick sessions and we were into freetime- yay!

I have had a number of people mention that if given the opportunity, I needed to see the city of Edinburgh. And since this time I was controlling the schedule and arranging the travel and hotels, I made sure we got to do exactly that.

But the problem was getting from Glasgow to Edinburgh. They drive on the left side of the road, and I had never done anything like that before. But I found that Hertz has no problem whatsoever renting to a Yank, so we were on our way. Fortunately we did have the good sense to upgrade to an Audi A4, with an automatic transmission and GPS. (Most rental cars come with a manual transmission, which normally I would adore but given the fact I was driving on the left, the less I have to distract me the better)

The Audi was very comfortable, and very easy to get around in. I only had one minor flub in a parking lot, but took very quickly to driving on the wrong side of the road. The car was extremely quiet and had plenty of oomph to get you where you needed to go. So much in fact, that when I pointed out we were in a diesel to my boss she totally freaked! If we had diesels like this in the States, I’m sure more people would be inclined to go with an oil burner.

We made it with no issues, even when driving in city traffic. And what a city Edinburgh was…I can totally see why people say you must visit. It’s a beautiful city, with a fantastic mix of old and new. Wandering around the city on foot was not a problem whatsoever, and we found a few great places to eat and to drink. Of course the obligatory trip to the castle is in order, however ours wasn’t without it’s quirks. When we had arrived, the weather had been absolutely beautiful. But that can change quickly in a coastal town, as the next morning we were fighting high winds and stinging rain. It was so bad that when we did make it to the castle, they were actually prohibiting the elderly and small children for fear they would blow over. Yes, the wind was that strong! However, the trip was totally worth it. Even though we returned soaked to the bone and freezing cold, I am still happy to report that it was well worth it.

We had spent less than 24 hours in this fine city, but I could tell it was definitely a place to visit. If you ever find yourself heading to the UK, and you have the opportunity, pop up to Edinburgh…you won’t be disappointed.

UK Invasion #2

My return trip to the UK was something that I don’t think I can forget anytime soon. I would be gone for a full week this time, and again traveling all over England and Scotland. The exciting part of this trip was the fact that I actually had built in some free time this time…learning from my last trip that there is so much to see and London can be a fantastic place.

However, this trip did have it’s ups and downs. The first down began before we even left Atlanta- a fuel problem with the airplane caused a 4.5 hour delay before we even left. So a long flight became even that much longer. However, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Because of the delay they served dinner while we were on the ground, so once we were in the air I could just sack out and sleep the whole way. We ate like Vikings, and as soon as the plane was off I was curling up and heading to dreamland. Oh how nice it was- I completely zonked out only to wake up when the pilot announced we were on our decent into Manchester.

Or so I thought.

Evidently my dreamland is more like a vindictive spite-filled hellhole rather than a happy place. I had zonked out…that much was true. But I actually dreamed that I had slept the whole way. After feeling so happy and relived that the ride felt so short, I woke up for real and discovered I still had over 8 hours left.

If I could, I would kick my mind’s ass.

PS- Interesting travel tip. If you ever find yourself flying into Manchester Airport with a connecting flight, make sure you are wearing comfortable shoes. It literally took 45 minutes to walk from our arrival gate to our departure gate. I seriously thought I was going to have to carry my boss at one point, as such a hike after a long ass flight will wear you out very quickly.

Guess Who’s Back?

So…yeah, I’ve been slacking a bit. It’s really nobody’s fault but mine, I guess I really haven’t felt like putting words down recently. I suppose it’s part of the transition from uber-travel man to working stiff. Part of me thinks that anything I would really mention wouldn’t be interesting to anyone.

But never fear. Things are settling down at work a bit which actually frees me up for a bit more travel. And with travel comes adventures…something definitely worth writing about. Stay tuned…for there are good things on the horizon.