Home Again

Whirlwind trip to the UK!

We had a great time at the meeting. My presentation went very well. The only bad part of the weekend was at the Friday night cocktail/dinner event. Our group was made up of people from all over Europe, who spoke just about every western European language. When we sat down for dinner, I began chatting with two of my Spanish colleagues at a table. Suddenly it became a table full of people from Spain, speaking Spanish.

I really hoped I wasn't taking up a seat that someone else from Spain would love to take. I didn't want to ask, because I couldn't figure out how to sound like I was trying to make an escape. At the same time, while I wasn't dying to get out, I was definitely bummed that I wouldn't be able to talk with everyone for the next two hours. It was UBER-awkward.

I asked Elena if there was anyone she thought might like to take my seat, and she laughed. She said no, but everyone would completely understand if I wanted to switch tables. I just didn't think I could smoothly manage that without offending everyone.

After about ten minutes, one of the meeting attendees said they really should speak English, since I was at the table. I was all, "Nooooo, it's fine. Please don't worry about me. But... really I would love that. THANK YOU!"

(Americans. Embarrassingly uni-lingual.)

The conversation was very interesting and I'm glad I was sitting there in the end. I felt bad about them having to speak English, but I'm sure they preferred it to translating every other conversation for me.

I was very happy to meet my awesome German coworker who helped me take notes through the meeting. I also hung out a lot with our site monitor from the Switzerland office. It's always good to put names with faces.

We did eventually make it out of our hotel area on Saturday evening. Several of us headed to the insanely crowded, but always  Harrods. Christmastime Saturday at Harrods. Just don't, unless it's your only shot to hit a tourist attraction before you leave the country.

One of our client peeps- the very petite, supercute, sweet one I mentioned a while back - led the adventure to the famous department store. While we were in the Egyptian museum section, she was talking and tripped over the base of a giant metal statue. I mean, she totally fell to the ground. She was okay, thank goodness. One of the museum staff came over to make sure she was alright.

She asked him, "How much is this statue? I want to know how much I would have had to pay, had I broken it."

"£175,000." (That's about $275,000.)

Oh man, So funny! We teased her about it for the rest of the night.

In March, I head to Berlin. I've never been to Berlin, so it should be supercool!