My First Business Trip

Last week Monday and Tuesday, I was on a world tour to Dublin and Rotterdam. My day started at 4:15a.m. I had a car service pick me up at my flat. We headed to the Gatwick airport. We must have took the side roads to a major expressway. I was not impressed with the surrounding neighborhoods. They looked dingy.

I arrived at Gatwick around 5:00 a.m. (yes, almost an hour later) and as I looked up at the departure board, I noticed that there was no flight leaving out of Gatwick for Dublin at 6:50a.m. Hmmmm, I wondered....I then checked my itinerary and realized that I was at the wrong freakin' airport! Leave it to me to get things wrong the first time. I suddenly panicked because this trip was a string of bookings that would ultimately lead me to Rotterdam. A very important meeting that I was coordinating.

There was no way I could cancel my trips. So I did the only thing I could do, I had to phone my manager. I embarrassingly explained that I was at the wrong airport and there were no flights to Dublin. He laughed...Thank god...He said that I should try and take a cab to Heathrow.

So it was kind of funny going up to the taxi post and asking for a cab to Heathrow. 95 pounds ($154) and an hour later I was at Heathrow. The taxi driver was so nice and said "Oh sweetie, I would have thought Gatwick myself." Those polite Englishmen....Apparently, this airline is synonymous with leaving out of Gatwick.

I arrived in Dublin for a 6 hour meeting. The clients were really nice. It is amazing how their business is so tied with history. Without divulging too much information about my client, they made references about how they run their business and how it dates back to World War I when Ireland was considered neutral. I found this very interesting and have taken an interest in re-learning European history. I found it boring and as I got older, realized that the history I learned was party biased because it is from the American point of view. Anyway..in these situations, I sometimes feel so ignorant with history and geography. Especially when I don't know where a particular country or city is. So this one goes on my list of 'To Dos' while in Europe. This one will be sooner than later. I didn't see too much of Dublin but at first observation it is definitely greener than London.

Around 4:00p.m., my manager and I headed to the airport to catch a plane to Amsterdam and then took a train to Rotterdam. While waiting for the train in Amsterdam, my manager reminded me about these really great waffles that have caramel in the middle. You put them over your tea and the steam makes them really soft. A client brought some for us last week and after having one, I had been eyeing the rest of them that week. So we found a store that sold Dutch goods and I started off buying 3 but apparently it was a 12 euro minimum on your debit card. I ended up with 6 packages of waffles and they weren't light either. Seriously, what am I going to do with 6 dozen pack waffles??? I guess I'll have to add it to the shortbread cookies from Belgium and the chocolate Sofia brought me from Russia. I have a whole international stash of goodies.

We arrived to Rotterdam around 10:00p.m. and had a late night dinner. I had a traditional Dutch dinner - Braised Beef and mashed potatoes. It was really good. Later our Director and another colleague joined us for drinks and we stayed up late talking about everything from work to music to the stages of leadership development. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Tuesday was the big day for me because we had several clients coming for a very important meeting. The office is really cool because it is an open concept with no assigned seating. In fact, they don't have cubes. Most offices in Europe don't have cubes. That took some getting used to for me the first few weeks I started working. I see the benefits. I am more likely to turn to my colleague and ask her something than if I were in a cube.

Going back to Rotterdam - Colleagues come into work and choose an available seat, kind of like a restaurant booth and they do their work. The environment felt so relaxed. Very modern and chic. The executives don't have offices. They have really nice conference rooms or booths for privacy and client meetings.

The meeting went well. Afterwards, we entertained our clients at a nearby hotel for drinks. It was really empowering to see that I was the only female among not only our clients but other business men at the bar.

We ended the evening by heading to the airport and debriefing on our meeting. I flew into a totally different airport - London City. Supposedly this is a really small airport, similar to what Midway used to be back in the day. What I thought should have been a short ride turned into an hour long taxi ride. I think that the London grid system is not as great as ours and driving definitely takes longer than taking the train. The good thing that came out of this is that I had a sense of where I was at and was able to put a "face" with the name of a town. When you travel by the tube, at least for me, I only know where it's dropping me off. You don't get a feel for how the towns are connected.

I really enjoyed my first business trip. I always learn something different about myself and it reinforces why I came to London.