Off to London – Again

Tomorrow, I’m off to London again. This time, 3 fun filled days of meetings – with Tuesday in between that I have decided to take off. It’s that horrible 7am flight again, but it’ll be nice from the perspective of getting work done (if I don’t fall asleep in the over-heated conference room again!).

I’ll be staying in the Richmond Gate Hotel (paid for by the company – thank goodness!). It looks pretty swanky – Richmond Gate Hotel when you check out their website. On the list of things to maybe see after work – Kew Gardens (UNESCO world heritage site with Pagoda), maybe the Hampton Court Palace (former home of Henry VIII), and maybe the Wimbledon Stadium. What will I do on Tuesday? Well, it’s slated to be sunny and relatively warm (compared to Germany) so I’m thinking of going from the Tower of London along the Thames to Big Ben / Parliament buildings and maybe up to the Palace. It depends though, because it looks like it could be alot of walking.

I know I’ll be posting photos, so keep watching….

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Joining the Jet-Set

On Wednesday, I was told that I got the go-ahead to take a business trip to London for Meetings on Friday (2 days later). I was very cool with that and quite excited – mostly for the fact that I might have the opportunity to unthaw from BRR-lin’s freezing temperatures (17 days with no sun and counting). Special thanks to Niall who was able to take the dog for a couple days, and on less than 2 days notice. The trip was literally a “jet set” type trip – taxi -> airport -> Taxi -> Office and reverse. Other than being up since 4am and not getting home until midnight (bed around 2am), the trip was, I think quite successful. Essentially, I had alot of input into the “coming features” and hopefully brought up a ton of things that weren’t thought of to make sure we were covered.

Richmond Bridge over Thames

Otherwise? The office in London sits on the Thames, and our conference room faced the river (above) and a bridge near Richmond going over it. It was above freezing with a bit of rain. Everyone else thought it was cold (It was ~43 F) but me? Coming from 12 F Berlin – well, it was quite Balmy. I immediately stripped down to the t-shirt turtleneck and enjoyed the warmth and the sun for the morning…. When lunch came, I took a few snapshots of the River and the office (game room chairs below), and wished I could have stayed longer.

Chair ballBaseball Chair

When I left, I had an interesting discussion with the taxi driver on the way back to the airport who had asked about the day. Essentially I mentioned it was too short of a trip, but I suppose “Life is what you make of it” which turned into a discussion of how you can accomplish almost anything if you just have the drive and determination and know where to look to make opportunites happen. He dropped me off at the airport – and when I opened the door to go inside the terminal — this is the sign that greeted me. Karma telling me something? I don’t know – but I just thought it was cool how fate / karma really reinforced the conversation.

The World IS Full of Opportunities... Don't be blind to them.

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