Prague, Czech Republic: Jan 25th-Jan 29th, 2009

Sunday, January 25th:

• Left Philly for a flight to Paris at 6:55. All went ok, except my dumb phone is acting up and randomly shutting off.


• Reminder to give my dad a big fat kiss for my noise-cancelling headphones. Those things are a dream.

Monday, January 26th:

• Flight from Paris to Prague was short, but I wouldn't know, I slept the whole time.


• Landed in Prague and got to the hotel. Awesome place and my room is a suite, so I have 1 1/2 baths, a bedroom, living room, office. http://www.icprague.com/


• Went and hit up the awesome gym that they have here. Only did 20 minutes on the treadmill before I had to go check out our meeting rooms.


• Grabbed the boys and we went wandering around the city...almost went into Louie and bought myself a gift, but reminded myself that I have some purse presents coming.


• Had dinner at this awesome place - traditional Czech food. http://www.kolkovna.cz/index.php?language=en&show=hot&place=11
  
• Now I'm sitting here trying to pry my eyes open for at least another hour so that I don't wake up at 4 AM.

Tuesday, January 27th:

• Had an 8 am breakfast meeting with our client. First words spoken we "Hi, we're very frustrated with this study and if it were up to me, I'd fire all of you.". We did however have a productive meeting and got a lot of things out on the table.
• We then had another lunch meeting followed by a training session. My teams presentations went very well and we turned a corner with our client.
• Prior to dinner that night, we met with one of our vendors and basically told them that they needed to get their acts together.
• Dinner meeting with 100 doctors. Fun times!
• Had to leave dinner early with another co-worker for another conference call. Its 9PM there, and we're exhausted. We had little to no sleep, plus running around all day long.
• After that call was over, it was back up to the dinner to meet with our client again. She smiled and told us that she was encouraged that we're gonna get this done.
• Came back to a phone full of adorable texts from the boy. :)

Wednesday, January 28th:

• Meeting started at 7 AM for breakfast.
• After breakfast the presentations began. My team again did awesome!!!
• Lonnnnnnnnng day. My presentation wasn't until after lunch so I prepared all the stuff I needed and then got ready.
• My presentations kicked ass! We had awesome evaluation forms and it was proven that our team really represented and prepared ourselves well.
• After the meeting was over, we popped a bottle (or 2!) of champagne and headed to dinner.
• Went to a Belguim restaurant (http://www.lesmoules.cz/en/menu). Had a great bottle of wine and lots of yummy mussels!
• Went back to the hotel and hung out at the bar in the lobby. Drank a whole bunch of other drinks. Around 2 I decided to put myself to bed before things went downhill.
• Back in my room, more adorable texts :) I got a phone call from said adorable boy...where we talked about everything and anything. I'm very excited about this (which really doesn't belong here in the travel - but he's one thing that kept a smile on my face last week)!

Thursday, January 29th:

• Travel day. Note to self, never fly Czech Air. Ever.
• Layovers in JFK to Philly - not even worth it.

There are pictures somewhere, but I think they are on my co-workers camera that we'll need to find and post once I get!

Dallas, TX: December 16-17th, 2008

Tuesday, December 16th:

• Had a mid-afternoon flight from Philly to Dallas.
• Traveled with one of my new hires. We did a lot of talking and learned a lot about each other.
• Met up with our client for dinner at Keg Steakhouse. Ummm that was tough - I know it's Texas and everything, but I am sooooo not a fan of steak at all.
• Got a yummy chicken dish and had a glass of white wine - really built a relationship with my client which was the goal.
• Left dinner and headed back to the hotel to crash.

Wednesday, December 17th:

• Woke up at 5 AM thinking it was 6. Did some online shopping for last minute christmas gifts.
• Had to be on site at 7:30 for breakfast. Ugh that was damn early.
• Had a very productive meeting. Should this drug be approved, it could effect lots of potential areas (its for diabetes and chronic kidney disease currently).
• Had a 4 PM flight back. Got to the airport and it was delayed, rebooked on the 8PM flight. Tried to get on the 3, then they moved both flights up and we got on and got home about an hour earlier than originally scheduled. Still not sure how that happened.
• Came home and crashed...

Hershey, PA: October 26, 2008

The family came in from Florida on Saturday morning and my "aunt" has been waiting 10 years to go to Hershey, being the chocoholic that she is. We got up and left around 10:30:

• Arrived in Hershey and waited for an hour for the rest of the fam.
• Went through the chocolate factory to see how the candy is made - they've done a lot with the area and its really cute.
• Left there and went into the park. Lots of cute rides, lots of walking, rollercoasters, and QT with the family.
• Nicholas is so adorable because he is starting to talk and wants to get into everything. He's such a doll and so much fun to be around!
• We left the park after riding on the Kissing Tower around 7ish.
• Stopped at Houlihans for dinner. Dinner was very tasty (Grilled Shrimp with greens, tomatos and beans), however the service sucked.
• Left there and listened to the Phillies on the ride home. Soooo freakin awesome that they won!

Berlin, Germany: September 18-21st

Wednesday, September 17:

• Flight to Frankfurt on the red-eye. Next morning we had a flight into Berlin.

Thursday, September 18:

• Arrived in Berlin around 1:00 PM.
• Checked into the hotel - http://www.berlin.radissonsas.com/, went to the room and took a nap for about an hour.
• Met up with the team at 3:30 to review our slides. Worked on that until 7 when we got changed and went to dinner.
• Dinner with our internal team and one of our vendors. It was a really nice time.
• After dinner, another meeting to review slides.
• Didn't get to bed until 12 and was exhausted.

Friday, September 19

• Wakeup call at 6:15 AM. Very very tough to get out of bed.
• Breakfast at 7:30 AM in the hotel.
• Meeting all day. It was very tense and very very difficult to communicate. This was also the first time my CEO was at one of these meetings and saw how things went down.
• At the end of the meeting, we had the whole team from our client and our team meet to try to establish the best way to handle getting things accomplished. This lasted until 6:45 when we needed to stop so we could go to dinner with the other team.
• Got ready and went to dinner. I was so exhausted at this point, both mentally and physically. Dinner was ok, didn't really eat much because I wasn't in the mood.
• Finished up dinner and my CEO wanted to call my boss. Bossman, CEO and I talked for about an hour (got lots of good compliments) and

Saturday, September 20

• Another early morning. 7AM meeting meant me getting up at 5:45 with lack of sleep.
• Meeting was tense again, until time for my presentation. It went well and my CEO helped with presenting. Meeting took a change for better at that point.
• We met with the upper mgmt at the client, with our upper management and we made a plan that we need to deliver on. Means I'll be working straight through until October 1st. I think there will be a reward at the end of this...at least I hope there is.

Sunday, September 21

• Flight home. Long and I didn't sleep. And now I'm exhausted and time for bed...have an early morning meeting to attend.

Cheers!

Bronx, NY: Sept 6-7th

Saturday, September 7th:

• Got up early and drove to NY. Best part about the drive was the gas for $3.22
• Arrived around 11:30, picked up Silka.
• Went to her mom's and read/watched TV for a while. Oh yea and played the pass out game :)
• Got up and picked up Isis and Danielle. Headed to Riverdale Diner for lunch. Lots of girl talk.
• Went to the Galleria in White Plains to shop. I think the only thing we bought was Dani got Cinnabon.
• Oh Hanna. Headed back to Dani's and watched the Family Stone - such a cute movie!

Sunday, September 8th

• Woke up and went for a 3 mile walk.
• Came home, showered and got pretty!
• Went to brunch at this awesome place! All you can drink Mimosa's, lots of delicious food! Soooooooo much fun. And of course we looked cute so its even better! Pictures to follow.
• Came back to Momma Ruthie's, laid down for 20 minutes, then headed home.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: July 11-19th

Well ladies (and gents?), this was my first true vacation in 3 years. Yes you've read that right. I won't bore you with the daily details, but it was by far one of the best vacations I've ever had and we're making it a yearly tradition.

Background: My mom's familia rented a HUGE house on the beach. We all drove down on Friday/Saturday and had a wonderful time.

Highlights:

• Family
• Central Air
• 7 bathrooms
• Waking up at 10 AM, putting on my bathing suit and planting my ass on the beach all day
• Staying up til 3, playing games and drinking with my family
• Home cooked meals. Each night a different "team" cooked dinner. We ate like kings and enjoyed it every night
• Girls only happy hour. Walking to the beach bar, coming back a little tipsy and entertaining the men folk
• Having the cops called on us for playing beer pong too loud
• Left Right Center - Best game ever.
• Lots of pictures - photo session on the beach
• Getting a tan
• Going to WW while I was still on vacation
• Turning off my work email on my phone the whole time I was away. Only checking said email twice a day, but only to read, not to respond.
• Seeing the whole family sitting around and just observing everyone. It was truly awesome to sit and catch up and chat and rock on the deck. Just an amazing time all around.

It was by far one of the best weeks of my life and I can't wait til next year!!!! Pictures are on myspace.

Bronx, NY: June 11-15th

Friday June 13th:

• Steph and I left work early and headed to pick up my cousin Katie. We got on the road and got into NY around 6:45.
• We picked up Silka and headed to her mom's house, but no one was home, so it was off to Isis's to get ready. We decided that we were just going to stay there that night because it would have been easier, especially with us drinking.
• We headed to the train and were on our way to Moe's Cantina. Get there and find out the name changed. Met up with the girls (Isis's friends) and hung out for a while, ate, drank and played beer pong. Sucky music so we headed to another place.
• A fun cab ride, passing through the gayborhood, we wound up at a place that wouldn't let us in, so we split up and left.
• We tried to go to Splash (the gay club) for my sister, but it was a sausagefest so we wandered arond Manhattan and got on the train.
• We got home around 3 and chatted until 4.

Saturday, June 14th:

• We got up at 7:30 because we needed to hit up Leo's for haircuts.
• Steph, Silka and I headed out and got there before anyone else. Leo is amazing. I mean amazing. She's got Jedi mind tricks...she convinced me to chop my hair off again and I did and I love it! She did a great cut on Steph too - left her length but put more body and layers into it.
• After Leo's we headed back and had Perista's for breakfast...we all took naps after that and woke up and watched dirty dancing. Great movie!
• Then we ordered pizza from Emilios..mmmmmmm.
• From there we kinda hung around and then went to get ready to go out. We kept it casual and went to the Thirsty Turtle in White Plains.
• OMG .50 you call its and a DJ! We had suchhhhhh a great time and danced a lot!
• We left early because Steph wanted chicken (random) so we headed back to Isis's. Got in and hung out and talked for a while, then we went to bed.

Sunday, June 16th:

• We had to get up early because we were going to a Christening that day...it was tough getting up.
• Drove back to Philly and talked about how much fun we had that weekend and how we can't wait to do it again!