I Have an Announcement

My little Audi A3 went over 400 miles on a single tank of gas (tank capacity: 55 litres/12 gallons). With gas just shy of 1 GBP a LITRE, I consider this an amazing feat. I'm astonished at what this little diesel turbo engine can do considering I was barely getting 250 miles a tank (tank capacity 15.4 gallons) out of my Audi S4 Avant. I feel so environmental right now :-)

Where's Waldo?

That’s correct! I’m standing in front of the Ponte 25 de Abril, Lisbon’s version of the Golden Gate Bridge built in 1966. Last week I spent 5 days in Lisbon, Portugal mainly for business but decided to stay on for the weekend. Every 6 months one of our distributors goes all out and sends their 200+ field application engineers to an “exotic” locale in Europe for training. Moving forward they’ve decided to pick a seaside or Mediterranean spot for their spring training (Malaga is coming up I believe) and hold their fall training in Munich during Oktoberfest. Yeah, these guys have it rough. The first couple of days were pretty hectic since I was there to train some of the field application engineers on our products and where/how to sell them. (Side bar…Whoever thinks I’m capable of training engineers is sadly mistaken). The part that is really exhausting is that they get to meet face-to-face with someone directly employed by the supplier so it’s a field day in terms of airing their complaints. Some of them are actually valid but they mostly just want to be heard and then they’re done so I don’t mind too much.

I did get rewarded for my work as the final night of the training culminated in what I have to admit was a pretty glamorous and creative party. This distributor launched a major platform called Snakbytes about a year ago so this set the theme for the entire evening. They bussed us to the Botanical Garden which was built as a playground for the children of the royal family. This was to be the stage for our night in the “Garden of Eden”. They hired actors to play Michael the Archangel, Adam, and Eve and the centerpiece of the garden was the “Tree of Knowledge” dotted with apples. They even had a snake charmer for entertainment. Food and drink were plenty so I have to say it was a good evening. Just when I think I’m done with all the corporate parties, they suck me back in. (Extra points if you can name the movie I’m loosely quoting from.)

Thursday night I was joined by my new American ex-pat friend Tonya. Tonya has just finished her masters thesis so it was a nice break for her I hope. It was also good to have a travel companion again since I’ve mostly been traveling on my own these days. Friday was a pretty low-key day for us with a bit of sightseeing but we mostly spent the day shopping. With the dollar at ~$0.50 to the GBP, shopping in Euros is very tantalizing for us, although the dollar isn’t doing all that well against the Euro either these days. After a bit of a rest at the hotel we hailed a cab and headed to Kais restaurant for dinner. This was to be the first of our two cab adventures. We got in the cab and showed the driver the address. He nodded in acknowledgement and we were off. A couple miles later, he stopped on a street that was lined with cab drivers waiting for fares. He systematically went cab by cab trying to figure out where our restaurant was and mind you he did NOT stop the meter. He finally found someone who had a general idea of where the restaurant was located but he still had not figured out exactly where it was. He then drove us about another mile and got out again at a restaurant to ask for directions, also not stopping the meter. At this point we were parked in front of a large wooden building so Tonya and I looked at each other and said, “I bet that’s our restaurant right there.” When he returned he drove us about 10 meters because, yes ladies and gentlemen, we were stopped right in front of Kais. I, of course, refused to pay him the full fare feeling that I’d been taken advantage of and as we walked away I believe some expletives were shouted in my direction. Kais turned out to be a beautiful restaurant that was in an old converted power plant right on the waterfront. With its architecture, décor, and location, it could easily have been a restaurant in San Francisco and it was the first of several reminders of home. We capped off the night with a visit to the Port Wine Institute where I discovered that I'm not the biggest fan of port.

The next day was to be a full day of sightseeing split between the area of Lisbon known as Belem and a nearby city called Sintra. In Belem we went to the Monastery of Jeronimos, Monument to the Discoveries, and the Tower of Belem. After a late lunch we got into a cab and set out for one of the palaces in Sintra which we were told was an easy 20 kilometers away. Our cab driver turned out to be the same variety as the one from the evening before. He drove around the block and stopped to ask 3 other cabbies where the palace was. I had a really uneasy feeling at this point and wanted to go with another cab but Tonya is much more trusting than I am. We got on the motorway towards Sintra and about 30 Euros later we finally saw a palace on top of a mountain that looked to be at least another 10 miles away (note that all of our other taxi rides had been less than 5 Euros up to this point). We decided at this point to just bite the bullet and head back because the palace looked so remote we had no idea how we would make our way back to the hotel. We did indeed make it back and decided to play it safe and go to the Barrio Alto area for a quiet and relaxing dinner.

Overall my impressions of Lisbon were very mixed. I’ll definitely take the climate in Lisbon over London as it was nearly 30C everyday while it’s pouring rain in London right now. Lisbon isn’t the prettiest of European cities and perhaps it was where we stayed, but it seemed very commercial to me. We enjoyed the Barrio Alto area the most and found it to be the area with the most “soul” but unfortunately we didn’t discover it until our final evening. In many ways I did identify with Lisbon though, probably because it reminded me so much of San Francisco. It’s the western most part of Europe, was once a great port of Portugal, and has its own Golden Gate Bridge. On the “Oakland” side of the bay there is a massive monument of Christ that made me think of the massive Mormon Temple. Lisbon has also been devastated by fire and a great earthquake so it is commonly referred to as the San Francisco of Europe. Well take a look at my pictures and I’ll let you be the judge.

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Between seeing old and new friends this weekend I got a really good dose of "comfort food". Thanks to my great friends back home I was already setup with a decent network of people here in the UK before I even came over. The trouble has just been finding the time between business trips and moving house to meet up with them. Friday night I was finally able to get together with Arianne and Bill, introduced to me by Anne who went to Oxford with Arianne. They are both transplants from the US but Arianne has lived in the UK for 20 years and Bill for 10. Arianne is an editor and has worked on everything from cookbooks to sporting books. Bill is the dean of industrial and mechanical design at the university in High Wycombe. Firstly though I do have to share the story of how Arianne and Bill met because it's just so darn cute. Bill had known Arianne's family for quite some time but never met her since she was living in London. He finally met her at a New Year's Eve party thrown by Arianne's sister, but at midnight she turned into a pumpkin and returned back home to London. They emailed and visited for awhile until that summer he turned up and proposed. Less than a year later they were married after only seeing each other in person 6 or 7 times and living in London together.

It turns out, coincidentally, that Bill also works in High Wycombe so they live near my office now. Arianne invited me over for dinner and then to stay with them since it's a bit of a drive back down to London. She made a wonderful chicken risotto with peas and asparagus which was my first home cooked meal in over a month. In the morning I got to meet their two gorgeous kids, Karas and Liam. Liam just smiled and drooled a bit (he's teething) but Karas was able to read a couple story books to me and perform her repertoire of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and ABCs. They've got such a comfortable home and I'll definitely be back over for another dinner or pub night.

On Saturday I met up with Eela and Brendan, two American ex-pats from San Francisco (by way of Chicago). Eela works at the same company as my friend Kelly but is located in the London office. Eela and I have met up a few times since I've moved here and she's been fantastic. We're close in age and mindset so we sit together and whinge about how much we miss San Francisco and all the things we don't understand about the UK. Her husband, Brendan, is a shining example of my inability to get away from the 6-degrees of separation from the Silicon Valley. Eela mentioned to me previously that her husband worked at a security software start-up which I figured was different enough from my industry that I would be safe. On my first meeting with Brendan we swapped stories about being ex-pats and how our relative companies were helping us manage through the transition. During the conversation Brendan said something along the lines of, "Well company X doesn't even offer such and such for me." Which I responded with, "You work at company X? Do you know Jane Doe?". Brendan replied, "I just saw her on my last visit to the US a few months ago." Over 5,000 miles away and it's still such a small world.

Anyhow, we had a great afternoon in a place called Borough Market. It's an amazing open-air market near the London Tower Bridge and is similar to the farmers market at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, only about 5 times bigger though. They've got everything from fresh organic produce to prepared food stands. Eela and Brendan go there every Saturday when they're in town and I may have to consider joining them, although I wish it wasn't all the way on the other side of town (~30 minute tube ride).

Sunday morning I got a brief but very welcome visit from my friends Lu and Mike. They were traveling through Heathrow on business and were kind enough to extend their layover to hang out with me. I did feel bad that they were both pretty beat up from the flight over and looked as though they could use a hot shower and long night's rest. I met them at the airport since it seemed to be the easiest thing to do so I turned up with a few treats from the local pastry shop to help ease their pain. Good food always makes me feel better so I hope it worked for them too. It was just like old times (I know I've only been away for less than 2 months) so before we knew it 3 hours had passed and it was time for them to get on the next flight. Thanks for the wine Mike! In case any of you were wondering, I do accept belated birthday gifts ;-)

Now I'm off to dinner with my new friend Tonya to discuss our trip to Lisbon (Lisboa) next week. I'll be there for business but am staying over for the weekend when Tonya will be joining me. I don't know anything about Lisbon (Lisboa) but I hope to taste some good port.

Bon Anniversaire to Me!

First of all I want to thank all my dear friends and family for the texts, emails, IMs, cards, flowers, and gifts. It was a wonderful birthday knowing that you were all thinking of me.

As of last Friday I've moved into my new place with my two new flatmates and took off the next day to Aix-en-Provence to celebrate my birthday. Provence is a major region in the southeast of France that includes the principle cities of Marseilles, Avignon, and Aix-en-Provence. Provence has a warm dry Mediterranean climate and gets ~300 days of sunshine a year so it's a very popular place to go on holiday. It's also the setting for Peter Mayle's book, A Year in Provence (which later became the movie with Russell Crowe).

I chose to spend my birthday in France again this year because I had such a spectacular birthday celebration last year in Paris (with Maggs of course) and France in general has always just been magical to me. Every time I come to France I can't seem to help but fall in love. My first trip to France I fell in love with the language. On my last trip I fell in love with a boy who had eyes so deep and so blue that I thought I would drown in them but alas he left me in Paris for the shores of Normandy. On this trip I fell in love with a pretty yellow house and a village.

Have you ever said to yourself, "One day I'd like to retire and open a bed and breakfast in the south of France"? Well I got a taste of that this weekend at the Pavillon de la Torse. Some of the Alterans may recall that prior to Mojy, the VP of Technology was Francois. In 2005, Francois and his wife, Marie, retired to Aix-en-Provence and completely remodeled an 18th-century chateau that includes about 1-acre of land bordered by a park. The house is a ~15-minute walk into the heart of Aix-en-Provence but is worlds away from any kind of city life which is exactly what I needed. The main goal of this trip was to get some much needed downtime away from any kind of obligation or concern. I wanted to walk, read, nap, and most importantly, EAT. Also, in all my trips to France I'd never quite made it down to the south before and have been dying to see it. Francois and Marie have definitely created a haven in this little corner of the world and you can tell that they've put the utmost care and love into every detail of the Pavillon de la Torse. They've actually already won an award on TripAdvior as the 2006 Traveller's Choice for Best Inns and B&Bs in Europe. It's also wonderful just to be with the two of them as you can easily see the love and care that they have for each other. It's not easy to get up everyday and work from 6am to 10pm taking care of other people if you're not dedicated and happy with what you're doing. I very much got the sense that they're living their dream in the south of France and loving every moment of being together there.

Being the goal-oriented person that I am (not that anyone would say I'm very "type A"), I got right to work on my objectives as soon as I arrived in Aix-en-Provence. From the airport I went straight to a restaurant in the city center and had a lovely 2-hour lunch that included a sublimely creamy risotto with pancetta and marinated artichokes, a glass of dry crisp white wine, finishing with a strong coffee and tart raspberry clafoutis. I then proceeded to the Pavillon de la Torse. When I checked-in, Francois mentioned that they served aperitif everyday at 6:30pm and that I should come down for a drink and meet the other guests. (By the way, it is a very strange feeling to have an ex-VP carry your bags up 4 flights of stairs.) After a quick nap and a shower, I figured I'd come down for a quick drink and then head off for a delicious birthday dinner. The other guests included 2 older couples traveling together from Tallahassee and another couple from New York celebrating their first anniversary. It turned out that I had dinner reservations at the same restaurant as the foursome from Tallahassee so from that point they basically adopted me. They took me out to a wonderful birthday dinner (not even knowing it was my birthday) where I had the freshest whole sea bass accompanied by simple vegetables and figs with caramel sauce for dessert. I couldn't have asked for better company to celebrate with me. Thanks so much to the fab foursome!

On Sunday I spent most of the day wandering around town as France is a very Catholic country so 99% of the shops are closed on the Sabbath. I first took a tram to get a brief overview of the sites in Aix-en-Provence such as the house of Paul Cezanne, the Musee Granet (fine art museum), and the Eglise de la Madeleine and then walked back to the areas that really looked interesting. As much as I wanted to see all the beautiful fountains, architecture, and paintings I only got a short survey of it all because my nose won out. After seeing a few buildings and landmarks, I ended up following the sights and more so the smells that surrounded me. How can you help it when you're in a place where EVERYONE walks around with a baguette in his/her hand? At one point I followed some guy for 5 blocks because he had this sandwich that looked so delicious I had to know where he got it from. I did finally find my way to le grand marche (farmers market) and went wild. I bought the freshest chevre, brie, tomatoes, saucisson (I LOVE SAUCISSON and this was saucisson heaven!), figs, flowers, etc. to have a grand picnic for my dinner. After all my shopping and sightseeing I stopped by Les Deux Garcon, where Cezanne, Churchill, and Picasso have been known to frequent (I'm not name-dropping or anything) for some sustenance. Here I was keenly reminded that there is nothing better than the simplest food served at the height of its flavor and freshness. All I had was a plate of oysters on the half shell followed by raw vegetables with an anchovies and olive oil paste but they were exquisite. I then headed back to the Pavillon de la Torse to sit by the pool and read my book. That night at aperitif, it turned out that my fab foursome had the same idea as me to picnic at the house so we pooled our spoils together and had a lovely dinner in the warmth of the Provencal summer. They taught me how to eat tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise, salt, and bread like a good southern girl would.

Monday, it turns out, was the 42nd anniversary of a pair from the fab foursome. During breakfast Francois and Marie surprised us with a wonderful bottle of champagne to celebrate their wedding anniversary (mostly) and my birthday. Isn't it nice to have champagne at 9am? I basically spent the rest of my time in town making up for all the things I hadn't eaten the rest of the weekend including croissants, pain au chocolat, glaces (ice cream), macaroons, biscuits and so on. After my glutinous spree I wanted to head back to the Pavillon de la Torse to spend one more afternoon of basking in the sun and reading/napping.

When my taxi arrived, I was truly sad to leave this place of splendor, relaxation, and pleasure but I had to return to reality at some point. I do comprehend better now what people mean when they say that part of the joy of living in London is that Europe is at your doorstep. When else could I have gone to Provence for the weekend?

I'll leave you with two final closing thoughts. My favorite word in French is now (and probably has always been) patisserie. Favorite moment/memory of the entire trip...Sunday morning I walked into a boulangerie and secured 2 fresh baguettes still warm from the oven. Why 2 baguettes, why not 2? I walked into the street with my treasure, opened the bag, and inhaled deeply for as long as I could. Mmmmm...I can still taste them now.

Pictures are on the left-hand navigation.