So long day so far…. But everything going ok.. decided to spec a box and what not and oh Nick decided to tell me that they are going to have a child. I don’t know how to take this news, since this has kinda thrown me for a loop. I guess I am getting a bit old now and what now, with my birthday coming up in 4 days. So one more week in Europe and then I am back home for some time by myself. My boss supports my decision to head home and all, and get some R&R time. The people at the UK office are absolutely nice and have shown me a pretty good time. I see a lot of scope on the support perspective and ideally since we are turning the corner in the company, it is a pretty nice time to be in the company. I should hopefully be heading a team of consultants in the near future. The idea of being a cornerstone of the new vision of the company is pretty exciting, and in the end the idea of options and having some good money come about for me.. fits nicely into my plans for the future. Ideally, I definitely see myself finishing up the traveling in about 2 years or so, then heading back to school is pretty nice as an idea. I would need to have a nice little cushy pad of money and all, then do some more traveling and maybe some consulting work for clients. On the HRMS side, I see HR analytics as a real strength within the organization and the ability to leverage the tools within the HR enterprise will lead to much more opportunities in the next 5 years.

What I need to find is a company that will allow me to take more training and do more in terms of the vision of setting up the enterprise scenarios and moving those companies to the next level. There is an astonishing myopia at the HR executive level and I think there is a lot of scope from the business process consulting perspective to get companies there.

Anyway time to crystallize that thought. I wish I had Kyle’s number in London, could really do with a nice drink or so right now. In addition, I have to figure some plans out for touring London tomorrow, and maybe meet up with Nerissa on the weekend. I am sure I could get a flight from here to Paris in the morning, but I figure I will just do a side trip specifically to London or so. I should start researching a couple things tonight on the CHRP and the MSc in Decision Sciences or even find a school that will allow a joint masters program for me. I think this would be the ideal situation for someone in the multi-disciplinary fields that I am in. Again need to put some thought into what I need to be doing.

Also need to put some thought about the financing for this.

But anyway on the way to Exeter, I had to pass through Stonehenge, so this was an awesome drive to kill two birds with one stone

The traffic station at Stonehenge

Well this was an early start to the morning, so got to the station, and proceeded to crash all through the 3.30 hr train ride to the south of England. The weather was absolute rubbish though: cold, damp and muggy…hence typical English weather!! Checked in at the hotel at about 9.30 or so, and then got to work for about 10am. Nice little office we have here, and very nice people we have working for us. I can definitely say that I am learning a lot about the trials of having remote offices in different places in the world. Just like there are interoffice politics, there are politics that are across offices and countries, and there are cultural nuances that one needs to be aware of, in terms of business conduct and how business is conducted in different parts of the world.

Lots of work, till the end of the day, then a drink at the bar with Norman Whitehall and then back to the hotel room in typical consultant fashion. The kicker here is that there was NO internet connection in the hotel…. Seriously!! NO INTERNET!!!! So I had my steak in Madeira sauce and then headed to bed at about 8pm!!! You heard it… 8pm!!!! Seriously, I think this was the earliest that I had gone to bed in like a couple years without being deathly sick or something.

This was a busy, busy morning, since I was booked in London but there was mass confusion at the HC-UK office and no client visits were scheduled and hence I was being seriously stressed out by Heather, but some IMs between Alan and I, cleared up things nicely. A call from Scott also helped to realign things quickly and it was decided that I would go to Exeter to meet the UK team a bit early. Hotels were cancelled and rebooked, new train arrangements were made. By this time after everything, it was about noon. So of course, called up Fiona and Nerissa and made plans. Now I try not to be indecisive about things and im not indecisive about plans, but Fiona spent 3 hours trying figure out her plan, when I knew the plan was Oxford Street for some shopping…. Well I didn’t know Oxford Street but I knew shopping.

Eventually we went out for shopping, ended up at a very nice Spanish restaurant for Tapas and Sangria. A delightful combination indeed! Nerissa joined us at the middle of the meal. With my assistance, they ordered the Artichokes (whch I would eat in a second but they tried they wouldn’t try it, and a awesome scallop, pancetta and monkfish skewer. Quite tasty, if I do say so myself; with this great tomato and anchovy sauce. Im not an anchovy fan per se, but this sauce gave me great ideas for something different. In fact, this whole trip with all the Arabic and Middle Eastern flavours, it has really perked my cooking interests.

So after this nice meal and drinks, there was the consequent buzz in mind from the 3 pitchers of sangria, we proceeded to walk down Oxford Street for laughs and a trip to the Gelateria : Strawberry for me!!! Then back to the apartment at Vauxhall. Quick nap and we decided to head out for shisha. Now there has been a lot of Shisha in the last 4 months… 3 times, which is a lot for moi, seeing as though I don’t smoke at all. So the plan was to head to a Lebanese bar that served shisha… I didn’t know it was a Lebanese restaurant, else I actually might have vetoed, given all the Arabic food I had in Israel – but this would have been a mistake.

The food was excellent, with some great shish taouk, and of course seeing that the girls never really had lots of Lebanese food before, it was nice for me to play food guide for them… so I did all the ordering: Tabouleh, Falafel, Shish Taouk plate with Zata, Spicy Merguez, Lahem B’agine, Hummus, Moussaka and of course tons of pitas and drinks.  This was a lot of food, but the main entertainment was the people watching and the belly dancing. Those belly dancers would be awesome back home, no doubt. There were two girls who pretty much rocked the house, and one girl would have done a West Indian winer girl proud for sure.  Took a couple a videos of the Belly Dancers, I had seen a couple Belly Dancers before, but these two girls were awesome.

We didn’t end up doing any shisha, since the restaurant didn’t have a license but it didn’t matter, we had an awesome time. So grabbed a cab and headed back to the apartment till I had to leave at 4.30am for Paddington Station to head to Exeter.

No big sets of worries here, got in fine, no customs troubles, which I expected having come in from Israel. No issues with the tube from Heathrow and no issues getting to the hotel. However, the Thistle Victoria hotel, is a grand old hotel in the middle of London, but it is OLD… did I say Old? I meant dusty and moldy and mildewy and stuffy and the bed was uncomfortable and the shower small, and the hallway creepy and almost haunted at night. So of course, in true diva fashion, I made a fit and wanted to check out that night, but I thought it prudent to just chill and instead head to Fiona and Nerissa’s place which wasn’t too far from my hotel.

Since I didn’t know where I was actually going to, I decided to head to the station and try to find a cab. Now the thing is that it isn’t as simple as grabbing cab around Victoria station, since it was a major hub. So of course, I got in the queue for the cabs, when out of nowhere, some guy asks me if I need a cab, and me seeing the line for the cab, went along with the gypsy cabbie. Now, I know what the comment is… never get in an unlicensed cab in a strange country, but this was London, the Big Brother capital of the world, so I’m sure there was some camera that caught the whole transaction. In fact, the number of cameras around London actually seriously unnerves me. It is something out of a sci-fi novel, in that, it is moving to a police state mentality. Anyway, 15 pounds later, I get to the flat and we hang out there for the rest of the evening into the morning.