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The past week has been lots of travel. I should have kept up on the blog better but the time flew by really fast. I feel like I was just starting to really settle in to Phnom Penh. I had sort of found a rhythm to the day and the weeks. I wondered if going to Europe would make me miss home more and set me back in terms of culture shock. I had overnight stays both directions in Bangkok. I grow to love that city more everytime I go. It's sort of like the New York City of SE Asia. It has a great energy to it and the Thai people are really wonderful. Bangkok isn't as gritty as Phnom Penh. So what do I mean by gritty? Well, here's an example. Last night I was walking to dinner from my place and I was on the sidewalk when I look to my right and seek this rat playing frogger with the moto-bikes and cars as he's crossing the road. The rat cheats death by actually making it across the street. Then the rat comes running toward me full throttle and I leap about three feet in the air. These
two Khymer guys are laughing at me now knowing why I'm acting like an epileptic ballet dancer and the rat heads straight toward them. Then they both start jumping up and down and we are all laughing together, except maybe the rat. Then the guys go in hot pursuit of the rat and corner it chasing it back and forth on the sidewalk. They close in on the poor thing and the next think you know the rat is in the European Cup as the football. That's what I mean by gritty. You see that sort of thing in Phnom Penh and you don't even blink. Thai people would just step aside and give the rat passage, probably acting all freaked out about it the way I would. Then there is the element of never knowing quite what happened to the rat after the two guys kicked it's brains in.
So back to the trip. I had two long layovers both ways in Istanbul that basically landed me for extended periods in the Turkish Airways club lounge. I think relaxing in the President's Club between flights over a bloody mary is pretty wonderful. But this place was frickin' awesome!
They had a theatre room with reclining chairs where you could watch tributes to Pavarotti and feel like you are in the front row. I don't love opera but I loved this. I feel like I know know Andre Bocelli personally. And then there is the food. There is a fruit bar, nut bar, pizza bar, middle eastern grill, salad bar, dessert bar and wine bar. I was ready to end my trip in Istanbul and stay in the club lounge. I can't tell you much about the country of Turkey but they do airport lounges really well.
I arrived Barcelona just after midnight on June 25. I have one day to adjust to jet lag before starting work on Tuesday. By the end of the day on Monday I'm spending a great deal of my time on the toilet. Something very unfair about this. I had just spent six weeks in Cambodia eating and drinking anything that comes my way and I spend less than a day in Spain and I have a dandy case of the "Grey Poupons". By evening I'm aching all over and I nearly sleep through the board meeting that I was hired to
travel half way across the world to facilitate. So I drag myself in and beg forgiveness and everyone seems fine that I was not fine. I was hired to facilitate a strategic planning process for an academic association of feminist economics. It was a fascinating week with great conversations and an honor to work with such dedicated people. You'll not believe that I didn't even see the Sagrada Familia while I was in Barcelona but I did go to the main Cathedral (stunning) and saw one of Gaudi's La Pedrera which was just incredible. Barcelona is laid out for walkers and bikers. It's a beautiful city and I'd go back in a heartbeat. It was especially fun to be there during Euro-cup which I'm sure most American's could care less about the Spain won the tournament. It was a kick to be at a fine dining restaurant the night Spain played Portugal. As soon the the game started, services virtually ended. The entire kitchen and wait staff were gathered around TVs.
I had another long (12 hrs) layover in the Turkish Airlines lounge and my pain was rewarded with a first class upgrade on the flight back to Bangkok which is a wicked-long flight, not quite as bad as Houston-Tokyo. This is what first class used to be with a real menu and choices and a bar in the front of the cabin. I mostly slept. I was so full from eating all the fruit, nuts, cheese, grill, pizza, salad and desserts in the lounge I really wasn't so interested. I had just enough time in Bangkok for a massage and presto I'm back home in the not so architecturally interesting Phnom Penh. But, it's home and it feels like home. Other than trying to speak Spanish a couple of times to Cambodian's my Spain trip is now a distant memory. I have no idea why I thought this would work since they don't even really speak Spanish in Barcelona. Spanish is sort of a second language to Catalonian.
Now it's back into developing the program for the next three weeks. I go back to Bangkok on July 20 for a week of training programs there. That will end my travel for a while. I think I have a Singapore trip in December and then Jeff and Janet come to Bangkok in December. My best friend Patrick moves to Bangkok at the end of September so I'm sure I'll probably do a weekend there sometime this fall.
I know people always want pics and I'm the worlds worst a taking them. I took a few market pics in Barcelona because it just struck me how differently things are presented there than Phnom Penh. I also took a picture of this sculpture in the airport in Bangok that is pretty cool. I'm sure it has religious significance but I don't know what it is. It sort of looks like a battle of good v. evil and I'm sure the three headed serpent isn't on the side of good. Past that, you're on your own with intrepretation.
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