Destination Sacramento

As part of my continual travels, I attempt to make it to California for some weekends.   One important consideration to California trips is how long I can be there.  If it is a normal weekend and I fly from New York, I will arrive late on Friday night and have to return on a mid-morning Sunday flight unless of course I take the Sunday evening redeye.  This presents a dilemma – be in California for little over 36 hours or get that extra full day on Sunday but pay the price with very little sleep and a full work day on Monday.   To solve this dilemma, I try to schedule my flights out to California or the West Coast over long weekends.   This way I can enjoy the entire weekend and return East on Monday.   Otherwise I would have to take a vacation day and that makes it too easy.   Maneuvering to maximize a travel experience while minimizing time away from work is half the fun of planning.

The weekend was very fun as I was able to spend a lot of time being worn out by my non-stop playing 16 month old niece!   The good part for me is that spending so much time playing with her and at this age where she is picking things up quickly, only gives me hope that she may actually know who I am at some point!   My proudest moment of the weekend was when I taught my niece to say ‘shadow’.  She was walking out of the lighted kitchen into the dark hallway and saw her shadow.  She then began saying shadow and pointing at her shadow.  

City Night #1

Working on the road entails quite a few nights (every night) eating at a restaurant or some other food providing establishment.  Well, since I am working a mere 1.5 hour drive in good traffic from New York City, I took it upon myself to organize dinner trips to the city.  The rules are simple – carpool in, try different types of restaurants and enjoy yourselves.   The first type of food selected for this group outing was a Brazilian Churascerria.   This is the place where you indulge in more meat that should be acceptable.    You basically sit at your table with a small coaster size device that is red on one side and green on the other.  When you are ready for the waiters carrying kebabs of meet to stop, you show the green side.   They will bring many varieties of beef, pork, chicken and lamb for you to try.  When you have your fill, you simply display the red side.   The key to this is to pace yourself.   Otherwise you can become easily overwhelmed and end up eating way too much.   However, this is a very fun experience.  The first dinner group totaled 10 people and a good time was had by all.   Part of our experience was enhanced by having 3 Brazilian Portuguese speakers with us who are very good critics of their homelands food.   This language benefit also aided us in getting better service from the predominantly Portuguese speaking waitstaff.

History in the Harbor

Today I had the opportunity to explore 2 very historic landmarks of the American culture – The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.    Now both of these have very storied pasts.   However to get to experience them first hand was very stirring.   As I meandered through Ellis Island, I could only wonder if any of my ancestors came through there.  To me history is very fascinating especially in light of the imaginative contemplation that occurs trying to mentally picture what things may have been like back then.  Considering the mass of humanity that paraded through Ellis Island, it is no surprise that New York City is so culturally diverse and maintains diversity unlike any other city in the United States of America.   Some interesting facts that I learned during this tour were that Ellis Island shut down in the 1950’s and lay in a state of disrepair until renovation began in the early 1980’s.   At the peak of immigration in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s, ships from around the world would weeks to disembark their passengers due to the high volume of traffic.  Also, Ellis Island expanded quite a bit over the early years of its use primarily from dirt excavated during the building of the New York Subway system.   

The Statue of Liberty Tour was quite fascinating as well.  Although we were only allowed to go to the Observation Deck at the base of the Statue, it was still fascinating to learn some interesting facts.   First of all, the Statue was originally constructed in France piece by piece and then disassembled and shipped to New York.  The ship carrying the disassembled statue almost sunk prior to arriving to New York.   The face of the Statue was created in the likeness of the mother of the architect.   One very amazing view was from within the statue looking up.   You could see the extensive internal frame that supported the Statue.   It was quite a contrast to what you see on the outside!

One side note was that it was COLD that day but very sunny.   However, I would encourage everyone to take time to go see that as it is indeed 2 of the more famous pieces of American history.

Up and Running

For the past 8 years I have been pursuing a career that requires me to travel 100% of the time to the client location.   Prior to taking this job the extent of my traveling had been 3 flights and a few trips to Virginia and Florida from my native homeland of Indiana.   Well, with the world literally at my fingertips and an airplane not too far away, I began taking weekend trips to various locations – both domestically and internationally and also taking holidays across the globe.   Part of my ambition was to visit at least 2 new countries every year.  

During the course of these travels, I have worked in places such as Cleveland (OH), Wilmington (DE), Rochester (NY), Kiel (Germany), Portland (OR), Hilversum (Netherlands), Moorestown (NJ), Islandia (LI) and Slough (United Kingdom).   Since the airplane was my form of transportation to and from work, I soon found it enjoyable to make alternative travel plans.

Over the course of the upcoming year and beyond, I plan to ‘blog’ my travels on the weekends as well as any other interesting business travel occurrences that I may experience.   Flight attendants, please be seated for takeoff…