It’s been almost exactly a year now since we moved to London and with that anniversary comes the expiration of our current lease. If it weren’t for the kids upstairs, I’d be tempted to ride it out in our current place for another 6 months or so. Unfortunately, that’s not going to work and we’ve (mostly Melisse) been hitting the street looking for some new digs. The process has been quite a bit different from what we experienced last year as we’re a bit more experienced and don’t have the ‘help’ of the relocation service. We put in an offer on a place yesterday that was denied (too low), but we found two other places that were much nicer that we’ll make offers on today. If all goes as planned (it never does) we’ll have it sorted by the end of the week.
Hope all of the Father’s out there are having a wonderful day. I’d like to wish my dad a special Father’s day! I wish I could be with him today, but the trip from NY is a little too long for what our project schedule allows. My dad is one of those unique people that is always there to help out, no matter who, when or where. Throughout my entire life, I’ve watched him sacrifice his time, money and energy for the benefit of those around him. I hope he knows how much this is appreciated and what a difference he has made in my life and numerous others.
It’s now been two weeks since we’ve arrived and the project is in full swing. Two more weeks to complete phase 1 and get to return to London. We’ve made good progress, but the next few days will be critical to making sure we start to pull things together.
On the non-work side, NY has been great. I’ve made it out for a few runs in Central Park, but my ankle is continuing to give me problems. I’ll probably give it a go tomorrow to see if it is any better (or actually just to get out and exercise). We had a great time at the Yankees game last week, even though they lost. They gave up 4 runs in the top of the 9th, but made it exciting at the end as they had the tieing run at the plate. Part of the team made it out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, while others checked out the Met. I have been a bit of a slacker (and working too much) and haven’t ventured out to see too much. I should make it a point to do something tomorrow.
That’s about all that’s going on right now. Here’s a picture from the roof top where we enjoyed an fabulous end of week party last night. We took a bunch of beer and take out sushi up to the roof last night and had a very casual end of week get together.
It seems like we arrived ages ago, but it’s only been 7 days. We spent last weekend exploring the area around our apartments, getting supplies for the week, and checking out central park. Central park is incredible and last weekend was beautiful with blue skies and temperatures reaching 80 degrees. I was able to make it out for a few runs and also enjoyed an afternoon hanging out on the roof-top deck for our building.
After several logistical complications, we got the team fully up and running on Wednesday. The client is great, but we definitely have our work cut out for us. The next two weeks will be critical and we have a ton of ground to cover. On the non-work front, we have enjoyed some good food (aside from a mishap in China Town) and are beginning to get out and see some of the many things NYC has to offer. Today we’ll be hitting a Yankees game which will be fun as we have a few Americans and several non-Americans that will likely be as confused about Baseball as I am about Cricket. One of the interesting things in the week is how often baseball terminology comes up in business meetings in the US. Going to the game may actually help the team understand what people are talking about when they use terms like swinging for the fences, striking out, batting clean-up, bases loaded, bottom of the 9th, etc. I believe all of these terms came up in interviews and team meetings this week.
On a totally unrelated note, I tried out a new product this week that I absolutely love. It’s called “Odwalla Superfood - Original”. It’s a gross looking green color, but tastes much better than it looks. It’s stuffed full of antioxidants, vitamin C, etc and has sort of a smoothie texture.
Anyway…need to get a few things done before heading out to check out the new Yankee’s stadium.
So I’m hanging out at 30,000 feet in Virgin Atlantic’s upper class cabin.What I love about Virgin is that they take care of all the small things.The driver picks you up, drops you off at a private check in, they shuttle you through to the lounge and shower you with service the entire time.On the other end will be a car waiting to take me to my destination.While BA has more comfortable seats, the convenience of Virgin will keep me a loyal customer for some time!
Upon arrival in Peso da Regua, we promptly found the expo.It was quite possibly the worst expo I’ve ever been to as I don’t think there a single vendor of sports or running equipment, no swag bag was given out, and it took a bit of effort to figure out where we were supposed to go to pick up our numbers.Fortunately (as with the rest of Portugal), everyone was super nice and we got our numbers, t-shirts and directions for the start the next day.
The run was scheduled to start at 11:00, but we were advised to come into town by 8:00 to find a place to park.We sort of heeded the warning and showed up around 9:00 and had no difficulty parking.I think I broke a few Portuguese traffic laws as I pulled a few u-turns looking for a place, but it all worked out in the end.After changing into our running gear, we walked over to where the busses were picking people up and hopped on to head up to the starting line.In addition to the half marathon that we were running, there was also a 10k.Both runs started at the same place which turned out to be a few miles up the road on a dam across the Douro River.
We were pretty early, so we wandered around, found some water and eased our pre-race jitters with a few trips to the sani-hut.Sani-huts must be a unique thing in Portugal as people weren’t quite sure how to operate them.One might think that this is a pretty simple concept, but there are a few critical steps that the crowd had great difficulty with.First, sani-huts are unisex…inevitably the crowd wanted to form a male and female line, which essentially halves the capacity when the line is either largely male or female.Second, lock the door.While a simple thing, this was something people struggled with. Incidentally, it’s not what you would expect…no one actually walked in on anyone.Rather, the line would form in front of a sani-hut with the green (vacant) signal showing, but people would assume someone was inside and simply wait.
With 11:00 approaching (latest start time for a half marathon ever), we ventured back to the start line where we witnessed a number of people warming up quite seriously.We joked about being last place, picked out people we though surely couldn’t beat us, and tried to calm our nerves for the last 10 minutes or so before starting.The starter finally got the crowd back behind the line and pushed those running the 10k towards the back.We noticed that there were pretty much only pretty serious looking runners in the half marathon…
When the gun went off we started slowly through the crowd.The half marathon course turned left off the dam while the 10k runners went right.We started out with what felt like a reasonable pace and were delighted to see the course meander down a gradual slope that followed the river.We were cautious about the slope as we realised the course would at some point turn back on itself and we’d have to run up any hill that we ran down.I try not to ever look behind me in races, but rather focus on the runners ahead of me.At one point I did look back and was surprised to see that there were an alarmingly few runners behind us.At the 7k mark, the course did turn back around and I noticed that there were actually only about 20 people behind us with the last place person less than 1k back.He happened to be a guy that must have been about 70 years old and he wore two knee braces.
We fought our way back up the gradual slope and did fairly well until mile 10.At this point we’d been passed by about 10 of the people that were behind us and got stuck next to a guy that kept burping in a rather disgusting way.At this point I told Melisse that I needed to walk.She slowed down, offered words of encouragement and got me going again a kilometer later.At this point in the course, we were about to cross the river and head through town.It should have been an easy run, but my legs were done.We alternated walking and running and even got called out by a few old people that were supposed to be cheering along the course.We thought we were approaching the finish line when we realised the course went further and then doubled back again.
After getting my hopes up for the finish, this disappointment was a little too much for me.I went back to walking while Melisse carried on.We had to go down about a quarter of a mile before returning back to the finish.At this point, we had been passed by most of the other 10 people that were previously in our rear-view mirror and put my ipod on to provide some motivation and check the distance to the finish line.The strange thing was that the clock at the finish line read 1:58 indicating that we were going to come in close to the 2 hour mark.This was very surprising to me as it was way too fast for the pace I thought we were keeping.I put on my ipod to provide some motivation and check the distance that my nike + was reporting and found that I still had over a mile to go?When I finally crossed the finish line around 2:08, my ipod was still reporting that there was a mile left in the race!I’m not sure what that actual distance run was, but I was grateful to see that they were handing out wine at the finish line.We grabbed our wine, headed back to the car and enjoyed a fabulous afternoon at Quinta da Barroca.
Here’s the output from my ipod…notice the nice flat pace until mile 10 when I fell apart!
Last weekend, Melisse and I enjoyed a fabulous 4 day weekend in Portugal. We spend Friday in Porto before hiring (renting) a car and driving to Peso Da Regua located on the Douro River for the Douro Valley Half Marathon. We spent Saturday and Sunday in and around Peso Da Regua before driving back along the river to Porto for a late night flight back to London. This should really be several full blog postings, but since I’m getting ready to leave town for the next 4 weeks, I’ll give you the highlights. Maybe if the plane has WIFI tomorrow, I’ll write some more from 30,000 ft.
Starting with general impressions of Portugal, the place is beautiful. The people are incredibly nice and the places we visited operated at a much slower pace. The food was incredible everywhere and there was a nice mix of modern and historic architecture. Porto was a town that seemed to have lost its overall significance in the global scheme of things, but no one seemed to care. The Douro River and all of the small towns that fall along its banks were both historic and modern and in most cases, agriculture seemed to be the way of life.
There are a couple true highlights from our time in Porto. First, was our trip to a little fishing village not far from Porto. On the advice of a local, we walked up to the town. He was sure it was only 2 miles, but after walking for over an hour, I’m pretty sure it was a little further. When we got there, we were hungry and thirsty and ended up sitting down at this little table outside of a cafe. Melisse went in and came out with two beers, some grilled octopus and something that was similar to an empanada, but slightly different. As we sat out in the sunshine we watched the people, enjoyed the great food and ordered another round of brews. When we finally got up to settle the tab, it was 9 euros!
We left the cafe to head back to town and were very lucky to find a little bus that we could hop on. We proved to be stupid tourists in this instant as we hopped on the bus and sat down. The bus driver pulled away and then pulled over and stopped the bus and started talking to us. People all around snickered as we looked at him confused. He had the door open as if we should get of the bus (which I did) while Melisse tried to use some Spanish to figure out what was going on. It turned out that we needed to pay (duh) and we gave him a few euros and got back in our seats.
The second great moment came that evening when we found a really incredible restaurant. Melisse had located the place earlier in the day as it was tucked away in a little alley. We timed it perfectly as we were the first ones there, but the place filled up quickly. The wife was the chef and the husband served all of the food and ran the bar. I think it had 4 tables inside and another 2 or 3 outside. Once we sat down, he quickly brought out some complimentary tapas and recommended a bottle of wine. We ordered a massive feast of fish that was prepared perfectly and followed it up with pudding and coffee. He also provided us with an endless complimentary supply of his homemade after-dinner liquor. Needless to say, we stumbled home and slept well that evening.
OK…so this hasn’t turned out to be the highlights version…I’ll do some follow up posts tomorrow to talk about Peso Da Regua, the race and Quinta da Barroca!
As many of you may be aware from my facebook comment last week, I’ll be in NY for the summer. While there was some speculation that I am fed up with London and have quit my job to be a hot dog vendor at the new Yankee’s Stadium, the truth is that we won a big piece of work for one of our global clients to analyse its US operations. I will be heading over on or before the 1st of June and am planning on staying through the 10th of August or so. I’m sure that I’ll be back to London for a week or two in-between, but most of the summer will be in NYC. Right now we’re looking for corporate housing in Manhattan.
On the sailing front, Melisse and I joined the London Corinthian Sailing Club last weekend. I guess our timing was a bit off since it doesn’t look like we’ll be doing much sailing around the UK this summer. Either way it looks like a really fun group of people and I’m sure we’ll get the chance to go out next summer.
That’s about we have going on right now. There are a couple big premier league football matches today that aren’t on TV…may have to spend a little time in the new sport bar down the road. Hope everyone has a good weekend!
