Europe and sickness

I am going to be writing out of order a bit, I know I need to catch up on my last day in Buenos Aires, but first I will update everyone on Europe. It's been a long week to say the least. I came down with some sort of flu thing on Saturday and spent most of the weekend in bed and had to cancel my book club (which I was disappointed about). On a side note, you must read The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, very good book.

So, I decided on Monday that I felt okay enough to fly, but still felt pretty crappy. I made it to NY, grabbed a cup of tea in the lounge and luckily had an upgrade on my way to Madrid. I slept pretty much the whole way and was hoping I would wake up and be healthy again. Not exactly what happened. I met my coworker in the airport and we made our way to the hotel in Madrid. I checked in, showered, changed and then we headed into the office. No nap, and I still felt like crap.

The meetings went okay, the team is Spain was quite frustrating though, I didn't know who to believe. The reason we are in Europe this week is to understand the other side of the story. The teams in Argentina are providing support for the teams in Europe, so it was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle in another language. Two languages actually, since Argentian Spanish isn't the same as Spain Spanish - go figure. I made it to about 5 pm and I finally told everyone I had enough and I felt sick and went back to the hotel. I got in my room, hit the pillow and fell asleep for an hour. I woke up briefly, grabbed a cup of tea in the lobby, which I didn't have to pay for because I brought my own decaf tea bag (they didn't have decaf). I thought that was very nice of the spaniards. I then got a good night's sleep with the help of ambien.

The next day I woke up feeling much better, but realized I had no voice. Awesome. So this made the presentation I had to make at 1 very difficult. I somehow made it thru the day, I think it was having lunch at the bakery on the corner that helped. I popped over and got an assortment of every item that looked good (chocolate croissant, various sugar coated cookies, multigrain baguette) and forced my voice to cooperate. We headed to the airport around 5, me without a voice and with a very swollen throat and made our way to Zurich.

I have been traveling with 3 other men, one who left early and made his way on his own to Basel and two who are very nice, but one doesn't stop talking. Rebecca - I am sorry for everytime I ever say that you talk to much, and Alexa too. This man does not stop with his stories. He is British and he likes to talk really loud and name drop and tell stories about how he did this and how he knows so and so. He is a very nice man, but he tires me out! By the time we got on the plane, I was exhausted and couldn't wait to get to Zurich. Flying with a sore throat isn't fun, and especially when my ears wouldn't pop. But, they gave you really nice cheese sandwiches on pretzels and swiss chocolate to top it off. Swiss Air was pretty decent.

We got to the hotel in Zurich which was near the airport around 11, slept a few hours and then was up at 4:45 to leave at 5:30 to catch a 6 am train to Basel. Trains in Europe in general are super nice and I slept most of the way. I left guy #2 to talk to guy #1 (the talker) while I listened to my iPod. I am not very nice at 6 am, I'm quite cranky so I spared them.

We made it to Basel and to the IBM site, and it's beautiful here. There was a light snow this morning and it was just a picturesque European town. Meetings went well, all the men were Dutch, and had interesting senses of humor. Took the tram back to the hotel which is on the main square near the train station. Had dinner at a little Italian place, which wasn't very good and now I'm sitting with my window open (yes it's cold) and listening to the man playing accordian while the trams go by. Quite serene actually.

Tomorrow it's back to Zurich after work, but good thing is we will be done with work at 1. So I'll be back in Zurich no later than 4 and can explain with my coworker (guy #2, the quiet one). All I want is Rosti for dinner. Sara and I had it in Lucerne back in 1996 and I loved it!

Will update more after tomorrow night and I get to Prague. Oh, still have no voice.....