Boston

Well, I survived my first business trip with no real problems. In fact, I think I'm a pro at security, having done it three times in the one trip...but more on that later.

Tuesday morning was spent at the Ottawa airport waiting (another thing I got to be very good at) until our flight left shortly after noon. Security, which I was most nervous about, seeing as the last (and only) time I flew it was pre-9/11 security. Flight attendants, construction workers, a woman with a baby carriage and a cage cart full of Coke were all allowed to go in front of me...but I got through eventually!

Once we arrived in Boston it was into a cab and off to Burlington where our U.S. headquarters are. It wasn't until we got there that we all realized how hungry we were and that the cafeteria was already closed. Thank goodness for vending machines:

Coke, popcorn, orange cheese crackers and a Snickers ice cream bar....Adrienne and I shared!

Adrienne and I were sharing a conference room, and a network cable, so we switched back and forth checking e-mails and catching up on work. Took a conference call with the team and then we headed out to Cafe Escadrille for dinner. It was excellent -- the food, music, ambiance, and of course the company. It was nice to get to hang out socially with the team and get to relax.

Wednesday was our full day meeting with the members of the PR agency we work with and it was very productive, but long. It didn't help we were using these smelly markers for the white boards and the fumes were giving everyone headaches by the end of the day!

Mid-afternoon it began to snow -- big time. Here it was, April 4 and there was a snow storm. Our cab to the airport was an hour late getting to us, and we made it to the airport with a little over an hour before the flight was scheduled to leave -- but it was delayed by about an hour so we actually had time to eat. Logan is set up a little strange, and the Air Canada terminal had little food to offer. So, we checked through security for another terminal in order to be able to go eat at the very tasty Legal Sea Food restaurant. After going through security again to get to our terminal we finally boarded the plane back to Ottawa.

It was at this point I realized I had somehow incurred some serious damage at some point during the trip (in addition to my luggage being broken a bit):

That is a huge blue/purple/red bruise I have on the back of my left bicep...no idea how I got it...

At this point it was just pouring rain...I felt as though we were on the tarmac for ages...at one point we were actually lined up behind six other planes waiting to take off in the rain...


Luckily for me, on the way home no one was sitting next to me, so I curled up on the seats and tried to catch a little shut eye - but before I knew it we were back in Ottawa...