After a whirlwind week in Malta Andrea and I were off to Switzerland! Why Switzerland? Well a) Zürich is a normal stopover city between Malta and the U.S. so we were able to extend our "layover" a few days b) neither of us had been there and c) since February is gross for most of Europe we wanted to go somewhere where winter weather would be picturesque. Our travels began with a bit of trauma and anxiety. Thanks to Maltese road paving we were trapped on a bus for an hour, missed our airport transfer, and were told by the hotel that another taxi would be available in 30 minutes. Um no, we'd miss our flight. Luckily they had a cab available and it was worth paying for the taxi ourselves instead of ruining our not-yet-begun ... read more

In case you don't realize why I'm here, I'm here for a week-long management training program called 'Take Off!'. 12 of us from various EC centers were selected to come - EC Central, Malta, Boston, Toronto, New York, London, and USA (me!). Throughout the week we received training on various performance-related skills and were split into two teams to develop a project and present it to members of the board. Our team's project was to find a way to target EC's staff, students, agents, in communicating our 4 core values. I'm not a fan of more abstract tasks like this, but in the end our team one and it was a fairly well-thought-out proposal. It nonetheless caused major stress. The program itself consisted of interactive lectures on things like self-awareness, unlocking creativity, time management, etc. The ... read more

Day two started off on the later side, with a housekeeper knocking on my door and waking me up around 11:30am – oopsie! I wasn’t feeling too hot, but Malta’s most impressive church, St. John’s co-cathedral, was only open until 12:30 so I had to book it if I wanted to be able to see that. Luckily it was only a couple blocks from my hotel. Built between 1573 and 1578, the church has equal status to St. Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina, hence the term “co-cathedral”. It was constructed as the conventual church of the Knights of St. John, and despite its rather plain façade the interior is spectacular. The blue walls studded with Maltese crosses were for some reason the most beautiful part to me, but opulence was everywhere. The floor was a patchwork ... read more

Our final full day started off late and slow on account of having gone out the night before. We thought it a perfect late morning to spend poolside, so we put on our suits and headed on down. We grabbed a table and ordered a couple frozen drinks - a marg and a piña colada- along with tostones (fried plantains) and little mofongos stuffed with chicken a la criolla and guacamole. Nothing like fried food and alcohol to get the day going! Afterwards we lay out in the sun for a while before heading back up to change and shower. Next stop was back to Old San Juan for the last time to clean up shop there. We waited some half an hour for the stupid bus, but still, I'd much rather wait than drown in ... read more

It's certainly been a while, but saludos from Puerto Rico! Last night just before ten we headed to Logan where we found it deserted, the one perk to our red-eye. Only our flight and another to DR were still leaving that late. We were slightly delayed, but ended up landing around 4:45am after an uneventful flight during which we hardly caught a wink. We sat on the tarmac for quite some time, but once off the plane we quickly got our bags and headed to the taxi stand. At this point it was 530am, pitch black, and check-in was at 4pm... Getting to the hotel was quick, and we were greeted by a very nice concierge woman who helped us leave our bags, told us where we could freshen up, etc. We did a bit of ... read more