5 posts tagged “travel”

I am realizing I have been travelling a lot so far this year, as being home and in the office seems really strange.I really enjoy hanging out with the kid on a daily basis, but I am missing the conversation of hanging out with like minds. But I am also missing wonderful cities. I really miss Portland, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Vancouver, London, Oxford, and Brighton. I am also missing Sydney, Boston, New York, Innsbruck, Chapel Hill (Raleigh), Paris, Lyon, and Berlin.

I am off to Toronto this week for a real business trip, in Wednesday night and have all day meeting Thursday and out Thursday evening. I really would enjoy looking around Toronto and seeing the geek friends that live there (those I have met and those who have just been digital friends).

I really love cities and exploring them and hanging out with local friends. I am always seem to find the local flavor, which is increasingly hard these days. The changing of social rhythm is something I really enjoy.

This summer I will have lived in one rough location more than any other location in my life. The odd thing is I am not a huge fan of the Washington, DC area. It seems to be a really good place to raise a kid, but I am not so sure it is a good fit for me and I never really have been sure. I am not sure if it is a suburbia thing (there is a huge amount of suburbia in the DC area) or just an odd fit. Many of my friends I have in the DC area have moved away over the years.

At the moment I don't know that I have an image of stationary life that I can live with, which is a stretch as I could easily see myself back in the SF Bay Area (home) or the UK (a social home thanks nearly all of my day care solutions growing up run by British women and my last semester of undergrad was there as well).

I had cut my travel back to work on the book, but last week was a writing vacation (to some degree) to Hershey, Pennsylvania. This week Toronto for a really quick trip. I have a trip to Mexico City that may be in store in the near future as well as a trip to the shore (this depends on how the book is progressing).

Following other's lead I am trying to capture where I went in 2006. This may get updated as memory comes back to and I get my calendars functioning again.

• Seattle, Washington, USA
• Redmond, Washington, USA
• Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• Austin, Texas, USA
• Longbranch, New Jersey, USA
• Princeton, New Jersey, USA
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Vero Beach, Florida, USA
• Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• Innsbruck, Austria
• London, UK
• Brighton, UK
• Spring Lake, New Jersey, USA
• Portland, Oregon, USA
• San Francisco, California, USA
• Sunnyvale, California, USA
• Cupertino, California, USA
• Mountain View, California, USA
• Los Altos, California, USA
  
• Strasbourg, Pennsylvania, USA
• Sydney, Australia
• Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
  
• Stockton, California, USA
• Lafayette, California, USA
• San Anselmo, California, USA
• Berkeley, California, USA
  

A many of these places were visited more than once. Some of these seem like a second home as they are that familiar.  So far for 2007 it looks like it will be similar with travel the first 4 months already on the schedule, with 2 or 3 trips in March and possibly only home for a week in April.  There are a few things that have not been blocked out in this time as of yet.  How did 2007 get so crazy?  I am still not going to make it to ETech this year and bummed again about that news.

This year I have been following holidays around the globe as well as Springtime (read allergy season).  While everybody loves a holiday, it can tweak a work related trip to extend days or cause new encounters not to get off on the correct foot, as in "hey, I can meet you Monday in your office and we can talk about this more there".  I have full knowledge of the holidays and have taken advantage of them by finding people to hang out with and have good local adventures, but most often I am traveling for work and would enjoy turning interest into work.  While the web is prevalent and the internet makes video chat relatively easy, real face time is still expected to get a project initiated.

The other oddity is following Spring (allergy season).  I am suffering from the most recent bought of this as it was blooming season in Sydney for something I am allergic to.  I seem to have stored the pollen well in my head and I am dealing with a nice sinus headache, congestion, and body aches.  Now I am looking forward to getting on a plane to get to clean air in the Bay Area this week.

Oddly, while allergies strike in cities elsewhere, most allergy related problems seem to ease when I travel.  Part of this could be all of the construction and dust in our house this year.  But, oddly my son gets sick when I get home from trips as well.  These are patterns I really wish would change.

I just returned from Sydney, Australia where I was doing the conference thing there. I had arrived on a Monday morning and my first performance was Thursday.  Man, did the folks planning the conference have it right bringing me out that early.  Wednesday afternoon at 3pm I had hit a wall.  I had cheese for brains and only could put together one day comprised of bits of Monday and Tuesday. I had been sleeping, but waking at 4:30am or so.  But, on Wednesday I was short on food as I forgot lunch and at 3pm I was just stumbling about trying to find food.  It took a few tries as 3pm is not a popular eating time, but I finally got some killer Singapore noodles and a bowl of pumpkin soup (I got a small of each which were giant servings).  I ran an errand and went back and napped for about an hour.  After that all was mostly good, aside from staying up way too late talking, a'la SXSW style.

Returning, I got back home Monday night at 11pm on the dot (also with a $50 on the dot taxi fare, making it a little odd). I had been travelling for about 25 hours and thought that would have been tougher.  I was up for about 90 minutes and then went to bed.  I slept a little over 6 hours and I have been mostly fine the last two days.

I do have a relatively easy time shifting to European/British time when I travel East, as I can usually get fully adjusted in 24 hours with little jet lag.  Going West is more difficult as I go to bed on West Coast Time and usually wake on East Coast time.  These 4 hour nights of sleep make very little functional until the 4th day when I have normally shifted over to West Coast time.

I wish I could do this adjustment as well as I have coming home this time on all trips.  I wish I could sort out what made this work.  The only downside is I am really missing Sydney and the people I met there.

I have had a great stay in Portland again.  This one may have been the best in a long time.  Today I essentially walked from 9:30 am until 5.  I bounced around the Pearl District then up to Nob Hill walking both areas from Burnside to Lovejoy or beyond.  I had great coffee and amazing baked goods.  Lunch at Ken's Artisan Bakery on 21st was fantastic.  I looked around Kitchen Kaboodle, which was my parents favorite store when we lived here, was one of the better cooking stores I have been in (the Sur la Table) in the Pearl was one of the better versions of that store I have been in.

Oh yes, I did go to Powell's, but did not go overly nuts.  I found good deals on some things I have been wanting for a while and picked up a new cookbook.  I wandered up around Pioneer Square and then back to Stump Town roasters on 3rd.  It was a little cooler today, but I found many stores and cafes that I want to visit on my next trip or many next trips.  Now I just need to get back again.

I am going to miss Portland deeply when I leave tomorrow morning.