The Difference of Two Hours

Apologies for my delinquent posting, there has been so little and so much going on that I haven't had the motivation to blog. Work suddenly crept up on me after the hiatus of the holidays and my trip back home. I expected the next few months to be quiet in terms of business travel but now my calendar seems packed until April. Also, all of a sudden there seems to be a steady stream of people coming from the US between work and personal visitors which means I've watched a lot of NFL over the last two weeks. I'm still sad over the Green Bay loss since Brett deserved another Super Bowl ring (because yes, he is that cute!). Seriously, he played a stunning game in the middle of a blizzard. But then again what do I know about American football and I digress.

Back to the original topic of this post. I've been spending quite a bit of time in the car these days between driving to meetings and just plain sitting in traffic. Two Mondays ago we had some torrential rain here in the UK (big surprise) which caused the entire marketing team to spend an average of 2 hours on the road trying to get into the office. The longest commute took 2 hours and 18 minutes to cover 38 miles. When we were all finally assembled in the office we had a long conversation about where we should move the office to. Since we all live in different directions, that proved to be a very unproductive conversation.

Spending all of that time in the car made me think about what a difference two hours can really make. This was particularly relevant since I'd just taken the Eurostar train to Paris the Saturday before. Now that they've move the Eurostar service to the St. Pancrass station, it only takes a bit over 2 hours to travel from London to Paris. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I LOVE France but this was a particularly special trip. A couple weeks ago some events passed that put me in a really miserable state (don't ask because I really don't feel like talking about it). On Thursday night a notice popped up on my computer screen from my friend Karen. She was asking if I had any plans for the weekend which was an odd question coming from her since she lives in New York (well really New Jersey). I'd just come back from my home visit so I had planned to spend the weekend recuperating. Well it turned out that Karen had access to some kind of world traveler airline pass and could fly anywhere in the world for free except for the taxes. First she suggested a visit to London but apparently the taxes were fairly high so before I knew it I was online looking for cheap Eurostar tickets to Paris.

Karen and I both arrived in Paris Saturday morning and basically spent 24 hours there. We made the most of our time though between the cafes, bookshops, and restaurants. We spent our day in and around the Latin Quarter, which is an area we both love with the Notre Dame and the River Seine just there. In general it was just good to see her again and she refused to let me be miserable. I can still see her telling as me we walked down a small alley, "This is the street of misery, once we get to the end you're not allowed to be miserable anymore." She is definitely one of the most positive and driven people that I know so it was good to be around her during that time.

The trip was extremely spontaneous and probably a bit irresponsible but I guess my point is that I'd rather spend two hours on a train to Paris than two hours sitting in traffic.

As always, pictures are on the right-hand navigation.

Home, Home on the Range

Home...I'm not exactly sure where that is these days but I came back to see my family in the Bay Area for the holidays. Considering my travel schedule over the last few months, why should my trip home be any different? My journey back started with a flight from London to San Francisco where I stayed for about a minute before flying to Fort Worth, Texas where my sister and her family are currently living. Why didn't I fly directly to Fort Worth? Because I'd already bought the tickets to San Francisco before my sister asked me to come to Fort Worth. And why does my sister live in Fort Worth, Texas? Because raising a family on two, let alone one, income with any decent standard of living is a very difficult task in the Bay Area. I stayed in Forth Worth for a couple days which was nice since I got some serious alone time with my gorgeous 2 and a half year old niece and my oh-so-cute 5 month old nephew. I knew that once we were back in California I'd have to share the two cuties with the rest of the relatives and my sister's in laws. We opened presents on Christmas Eve, which for some reason has always been the tradition in my family, and all flew to the Bay Area bright and early Christmas morning to celebrate with my extended family at my parents' house that evening.

I'd forgotten how crazy our family gatherings can get with 2 parents, 4 kids, and 3 grandkids alone for my family and then adding in all the grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, visiting strangers, etc. It was great to have a chance to see everyone again all in one place but it didn't take long before I was reminded how stressful families can be. How's your job, how's life in London, is it cold, is it hot, you've lost weight, you've gained weight, your hair is shorter, I haven't seen you wear that sweater before, does the human head really weigh 8 pounds, and on and on and on. Being back home also gave my mother a chance to corner me and give me the grilling/lecture of a lifetime in person. In the famous words of Will Smith, "parents just don't understand". (Word to all of you who rocked in the '90s with your "hammer pants", you know who you are).

This trip home did make me feel different though. For all the whinging and moaning about the UK, the San Francisco Bay Area did feel a bit less like home to me. At my core I am a creature of habit so now that I have "my" coffee/morning pastry shop, pizzeria, Indian restaurant, grocery store, dry cleaners, cheese shop, etc, London is starting to feel a bit more like home than anywhere else right now. It's tough to say though since I still feel like my community is based in the Bay Area so the jury is still out on whether I'd stay abroad for the long haul.