For a change, I was able to ease into day one of the conference. I spent the morning lingering in my room, resting, reading and catching up on my blogging before getting ready for everyone's favorite conference activity, the Board Meeting! We held the meeting at the hotel, in one of the Master Parlors, essentially a very fancy guest room (but no fireplace - I am keeping that to myself and just keep "complaining" about how far away my room is so they don't catch on!). It went as usual, but I can say that the vegetable soup I had for [View Full Entry]

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Nothing like a brutal migraine to start off my trip to Arizona. So I was eternally grateful on Tuesday evening to finally be off the plane, out of our taxi and here at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess. I would certainly consider it more of a resort than a hotel, with my room being in one of the several "casitas" at the edge of the property. Though it sounds far away, it's only about a five minute walk to the lobby and the room (or rooms, I should say) certainly make up for it. I have a huge living room, complete with [View Full Entry]

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After months and months of training (well, kind of) and fundraising, the Avon Walk finally arrived in New York City on Friday, October 5th. Were we ready? We hoped so. I arrived at Jess' apartment on Friday with my duffel bag (under 30 lbs, as instructed) and my walking gear. Although we knew that we hadn't done nearly enough training, we were as ready as we were going to be. We took the train into Grand Central Station and began our search for a cab. We finally found one a couple of blocks away and headed t [View Full Entry]

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This morning dawned rather early for me after staying up late to finish my blogs. Fortunately, our host was running a little bit late, and his email was a sign to sleep thirty extra minutes. The first order of business for the day was to have breakfast and meet with our hotel liaison. The breakfast is held on the second floor, and we ate outside in a small courtyard, which was extremely inviting. I've noticed that I drink more coffee in Europe - it's so ingrained in the culture, that not to is almost an insult. So even though I have [View Full Entry]

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After spending the afternoon dedicated to my computer now that I have a better internet connection, it was off to meet with our Italian host for a quick birthday celebration for the office's secretary before dinner. We met in the Piazza Campo de Fiori, by the statue of the philosopher Giordano Bruno. Our host showed us the beautiful building that houses the French embassy (leave it to the French to get one of the most beautiful buildings in Rome for themselves, he said), and then we were off to meet up with everyone from the office and the friends of Maria, [View Full Entry]

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After spending what felt like all day traveling, and almost injuring our taxi driver with my heavy suitcase (I told him it was shoes - it's really books, but probably in Rome, a suitcase full of shoes is more acceptable), we arrived in Rome, or Roma as the locals say. I already want to say things like "Roma" and "arrivederci" and "grazi" while rolling my r's and adding extra emphasis. As we drove in, I was feeling a little blah about the whole thing. I mean, I was Excited with a capital E to get to Rome finally, but as we [View Full Entry]

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This morning, I was exhausted, but I managed to get up at seven and see the sunrise. The humidity created a mist that the hot sun burned through as it rose, and it created a beautiful and peaceful start to the day. Then it was off to meetings - we had two speakers this morning, followed by our break-out sessions, one of which I was leading. All went well, except for a couple of the lawyers who were giving me a hard time about not doing things that we are in fact doing. Fabulous. So anyway, after that, it was off [View Full Entry]

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The title of my blog might sound boring - "another" evening on the Bosphorus. But I must admit, I'm not tiring of this beautiful strait yet. We learned today that it has competing currents, with the top of the strait running North to South, and the bottom running South to North. Yet, even though this makes the Bosphorus always active, it's very peaceful to look out over it in the evening. At the end of the night, I went out onto my little balcony and curled up in a chair to read, and it was pretty amazing to think that here [View Full Entry]

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Well, it’s been a heck of a day so far! We started our first full day as always, with a business session. Although I refrained from doing an interpretive dance as I’ve often threatened, my presentation went well. The whole morning ran smoothly and we ended right on time. Too bad that was the most relaxed we’d be all day! As we gathered to get on the buses to head to lunch at twelve thirty, we realized that none of the companions were with us. Apparently, they had yet to return from their tour (from which they were supposed to be [View Full Entry]

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Following a delightful day on Wednesday, I was happy to get a little chance to sleep in today before heading to breakfast. A buffet is served in two restaurants at the hotel, and we ate our meal outside, enjoying the sun glittering on the Bosphorus and the birds hopping on tables to sample the creamer. The Directors' Meeting began at noon and was held at the offices of our local law firm - the traffic in Istanbul is horrendous and makes driving in New Jersey look relaxing by comparison. It took us about thirty minutes to get to the firm's offices, [View Full Entry]

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