BUENA SERRA

Hey folks! I write to you from the comfort of my hotel bed, where I lay with my feet up - again. It's now Friday evening and I have walked about 250 miles. Oh, alright, I exaggerate, but it feels like I have. I walked the shoe show Tuesday to Thursday. That's 8 big pavillions, each with about 20 long aisles to go up and down. I did that twice, since I went through it once by myself, then again once Jeff got into town, to show him the stuff I liked. Then both Wednesday and Thursday nights, we'd drop our stuff off, then go walking some more through the city to see what they had in the shop windows. Just today I realized that we nearly walked ourselves off the map I have.

Anyhow, despite the amount of I've walked, I think I've gained weight from all the carbo loading. Jeff insists that I've probably lost 10 pounds, as that is what happened to him and David in the past when they came to this show. But I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I have had ravioli, lasagna, tagliatelle, spaghetti, spaghetti carbonara, and penne. All in 5 days. Let's not forget the two tiramisus, the daily capuccinos, the daily macchiatos, and the daily breakfast buffet.

So nothing too interesting going on here. Just been working for the most part. And eating and sleeping and walking. This afternoon I went into the Duomo again and took some pictures. Tomorrow I have reservations to see the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci at the Santa Maria Della Grazie.

Oh! I know what's interesting... Italian television. So I'm assuming we must have basic cable as we only get about 10 channels that repeat about 3 times. It looks like public tv stations plus MTV and All Music Channel. We also get free soft porn at night. Yep. Old playboy channel stuff, which is hilarious in my opinion, on one channel, and other porn-y stuff on another channel, which is randomly interspersed with normal stuff. The playboy stuff is so old, it's from before silicone boobs and brazilian waxes. Naked chicks doing random stuff naked with music in the background and a cheesey guy introducing each clip. It's sometimes the only thing in English (the announcer guy - the girls don't speak).

CIAO CIAO!

Greetings from Milan! After a VERY long journey, I finally got here. This is how my weekend went: Saturday night, got home from Vegas around 11 p.m. Just in time to beat the pouring rain. Got up at 4:30 to finish packing, left at 6:45 for airport. I stopped in Chicago for a couple of hours then headed over to Heathrow, where I was for several hours, as the flight was delayed.

I am definitely not a fan of BA. First the delay - when you've already been travelling for 13 hours, the last thing you want to hear is that you have to sit for four hours doing jack, unable to sleep. Then, they board everyone and it's an absolute free for all. They just say, hey we're boarding and everyone bum rushes the gate. WTH?! I was so tired, I pretty much slept through most of that flight, but when I woke up, I was ready to get the heck off the plane. I had the window seat and felt so confined. The only thing that made it worth it was seeing the snow capped alps... which weren't as snowy as you would think. (global warming is for real mr. bush!)

Upon landing at Malpensa, I saw some people we work with often. We were apparently on the same flight and all heading into Milan, so I rode the shuttle bus with them. It was nice to have a little company after traveling alone, although I did have a nice old guy sitting next to me on the flight to London. The shuttle bus took us to the central station and I took a cab to the hotel from there. The hotel is actually pretty ince.

My room is definitely bigger than I expected, as is my bed. The bathroom is the size of my closet, but it is clean. The bummer is they don't provide shampoo and conditioner! Must be why they give you two shower caps. They also give you two toothbrushes, two shower gels (which smell manly, therefore I smell manly as I had to use it as soap and shampoo) and two shoe cleaning sponges! I guess we know what their priority is around here. They also have a good internet policy here. You can buy 24 hours, but you can use it spread out over 5 days. In Vegas, you have to buy 24 hours and that's one continuous 24 hour period. Who the heck sits on the computer the whole time in Vegas? Good scam for them I guess.

OK, will write more later, but I've got some work to do before turning in. Arrivaderci!

VIVA LAS VEGAS!

Greetings once again from Las Vegas! I gotta tell you, today is much slower than yesterday, not that I'm surprised. Yesterday was super busy and we weren't expecting it, because this is the third week in a row we're at a show. By now, we've talked to most of the people we do business with... which is why I'm blogging during work hours. =P

Anyhow, last night, Tracy came out to visit. We had dinner at the the Burger Bar and split a burger. I didn't even finish my half. I was also super tired by 8:30. I am such an old lady! We just went back to my room and watched the Dance Crew competition on MTV and it was lights out by 11:30 for me.

Oh, by the way, Mandalay Bay has really good chocolate chip cookies. I snagged two the other night and ate them yesterday. AWESOME. They were not stingy with the chocolate chips.

Tonight we are having dinner at the Palazzo. I'll let you know how that is.

WINNER!

Greetings from Las Vegas! I write to you from Mandalay Bay, which I think has one of the nicest rooms I've stayed in. I'm a big fan of the plasma t.v. and closet space. This bed's not bad and the lighting is more than sufficient, although my big floor lamp isn't turning on.

Anyhow, this morning, we met up in Rowland Heights to carpool. As many of you know, it rained this morning. So of course, everyone dun gone cray-zay and the traffic was heinous. It took me an HOUR to go from the 405 to the 5 on the 605 freeway. That's probably not even 10 miles. After that, there was more traffic on the 60 due to a sigalert caused by a jack-knifed big rig truck. All in all, it took me 2 hours to do what usually takes about 40 minutes. Ridiculous!

Anyway, we got here in good time and set up pretty quickly. Afterwards, we got dinner at the Mandalay Buffet. I swear next time I'm skipping the regular food and just getting dessert. It all looks so good! On my way down to dinner, I decided to stop and bet on the Laker-Phoenix game. Phoenix was favored by 2.5 but they lost so I won! Yay me! I never win anything. While we sat and watched the game, the waitress told us you only got drinks comped if you were playing the horses, so I took one for the team and bet on the ponies. OK, on a pony. I don't know anything about this horse, except that it was number 5 and named Brilliant Ben. I hope he runs fast tomorrow!

THE BEST

Today, I came home starving. All I had the whole day was two cups of hot cocoa, a very little sweet bread and oatmeal at lunch. I know, my fault for not making lunch, and not being willing to go get lunch, but I was trying to get out early so I could run errands. Anyhow, I come home and have dinner. While I have dinner, I'm watching Bobby Flay's Throwdown and the topic of the day: Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I LOVE chocolate chip cookies! I swear they are one oF the best things in the world. I used to bake them all the time, eat them all the time (back when the old metabolism was a little faster). So I'm sitting there, eating dinner just salivating over these cookies. Well, after dinner I have to run my errands and I head over to Target, where they currently have those 100 calorie snack packs on sale. Still thinking of those chocolate chip cookies, I buy 8 boxes of cookies (though not all chocolate chip). Then, I head over to the mall because I need to get a converter from Brookstone. Afterwards, I can't resist the call of Mrs. Fields. There is no joy like a semi sweet chocolate chip cookie. I can sleep well now... and I should as I gotta get up early for the road trip to Vegas. Good night!

OOPS! PARTY FOUL!

Yep, I totally committed a party foul at Mia's birthday party. So I get my two tacos from the taco lady and decide I'd sit by the window and put my food down on the coffee table. Well, Cherrie's got this coffee table that has 4 rectangular glass panes. Apparently, one was missing. However, I didn't notice this. I had a 3 in 4 chance of NOT spilling my food. Now, had this been a 3 in 4 chance of NOT winning cash, you know I would have been in that 75%, but since this was an opportunity to make a mess, I was all over that 1 missing glass pane. Actually, I put my food down on the wood border between a glass pane and a missing glass pane, but apparently a little more towards the missing glass pane. It was like slow motion watching my food slide down and onto the floor. =P Actually, I got lucky and Mia's toy was on the level below to catch the majority of my food, but there was still rice all over the floor. How embarassing! hehe. Luckily Tom's pretty quick with a dust buster and Cherrie's cousin was nice enough to let me know he did the same thing, but worse, since he put red wine on the missing pane.

Anyhow, the party was fun. It's always fun when we're all together and again I ate too much. Clarisse's baby is so cute. A total mini-me of his dad and he's all happy and smiley (and drooly!). Tom & Cherrie also announced that they are expecting again. She actually took the test here at my house when I made dinner, so it was very exciting for all of us. I don't think I've ever been around when someone discovered they were prego. I thought Laryna was going to go to the party, but she never showed - unless she came really late. I wanted to see Charlotte before she left and take care of my packing, so I left Mia's around 3:30. I actually did pack, so I'm proud of myself. I was really tempted to just park my butt in front of the t.v.

TA-DA!

Oooh ahhh. New format! I know, no biggie, but I was kind of bored sitting here and thought I'd make some changes to the blog. Nothing major, just a new lay out and I thought I'd add some of those adds. Click on those babies! If they're going to be related to my blog, they'll probably all be about dogs and shoes. =P

OK, gotta get a move on. Busy day ahead. Errands, Mia's birthday and some packing to do! I'll be back later, hopefully with some pictures. =) Ciao ciao!

SICKO

Yep, that's me. After catching bronchitis at the beginning of the year, I went and caught the flu in New York. I think it was Wednesday when my throat started feeling a bit scratchy and I started coughing. I turned in early Wednesday in the hopes of feeling better on Thursday, and I thought I was better... but as the day went on, I just got worse and worse. By the time I was on the plane home, I was coughing and stuffy. The nice guy sitting next to me even gave me some Tylenol cold medicine, so I was able to sleep a bit on the plane. But when I woke up on Friday I felt horrid and it was pretty much like that all weekend, which is a total bummer because we had such beautiful weather. Now I'm trying to get completely better, turning in early and staying home every day since I've got more travel ahead of me. A lot more travel actually. I head to Vegas for a day on Friday, but then go back the following week from Wednesday to Saturday, come home, then fly back out to Milan on Sunday. I know, bad planning on my part, but it's too late now.

Oh, so in NYC, after spending the weekend at the W, I switched to the Hudson where everyone was staying. Wow. I can't believe they can charge so much for those rooms. It's actually SMALLER than my own room and bathroom at home. The t.v. is this little 9 incher shoved into the closet. At least the W had a big t.v. But I guess you don't stay at the Hudson for the room, but for the bar scene down stairs. It was happening just about every night and the co-workers and I did partake on Tuesday night before I got sick. It happened to be Mardi Gras so we even scored some free drinks, but I gotta tell you, our waitress sucked. I eventually went to the bar for my drinks 1) it was faster 2) I refused to add to the total bill so that she'd get a bigger tip. Aside from the bar, the location of the Hudson is also convenient. It's across from the Columbus Circle mall and there are places to eat nearby, as well as a CVS, Duane Reade and Starbucks. If I hadn't gotten sick, I probably would've gone running at the park since it was so close by. (yeah, right! well, i brought the gear anyway. =P)

OMG

NYC - day 3. Nothing too exciting for me today. I had some errands to run before the colleagues flew in and I checked out of the W and switched to the Hudson. But, omg, I was so tired. Last night, I had a hard time getting to sleep, I think because of the nap I took before the Super Bowl. I finally fell asleep around 2 a.m. However, at 3:30 I woke up to the sounds of my neighbor's screams of passion. That's right. They were getting down and dirty and the woman was LOUD. I suppose I could have banged on the wall, but since it wasn't headboard banging noise, I decided I'd let it go and let them have their fun uninterrupted. The screams didn't last too long thankfully. But, either they went at it again, or were still going at it and she was reaching her peak, because she starts screaming again. At this point I'm thinking maybe I should turn on the t.v. or maybe the heater because it'll drown out the noise. I go with the heater since I'm cold anyway, and I manage to get to sleep, only to be awoken at 8:30 by more screaming. Damn them! I'm tired and bitter, but I give them props for knowing how to have a good time.

GO GIANTS!

Greetings from NYC! The weather here actually isn't too bad. It's been sunny and in the 40's. Much better than the 20 degree stuff in December. Anyhow, I got in yesterday afternoon and Margie got in a couple of hours later. We met up and had a drink down in Whiskey Blue then came up to the room to drop her stuff off and contact some of her friends. We ended up having dinner at Rare - I think it's Lexington and 37th - where one of Margie's friends joined us. I tried their Kobe burger and it was pretty good. Huge. Once you stack it all together, there is absolutely no way you can shove that into your mouth, so I had to eat with a knife and fork. After dinner we went to Wet Bar for a few rounds of drinks and another of Margie's friends came out for a little bit. From there, Margie and I headed down to the East Village to meet up with another group of friends. The first place was a bust, but after a couple more tries, we finally found a place to hang out at. By the time we got home, it was about 3 a.m.

Now, I was determined to go Tea & Sympathy (Greenwich and 13th) at some point during this trip, so I actually set the alarm for 9:30. Margie had to leave by 1 to head back to Boston, so we wanted to go early to beat any crowds. We actually got up! We went and didn't have to wait at all. We got our welsh rarebit and I got my English Kit Kats from the store next door.

Afterwards, we decided to just wander around the village since Margie would have to leave from the Chinatown area. We walked to Washington Square Park and watched the doggies play, then made our way over to Soho where we checked out some of the shops. Margie had to leave while we were shopping, so we parted ways and I kept shopping (naturally). Lots of kelly greens this spring, btw.

Eventually, I got tired and headed back to the W for a nap. Wow, did I feel lazy. I pretty much laid in bed and watched all the pre-game stuff for hours. Eventually I hauled my butt out of bed and went to Margarita Murphy's to watch the Super Bowl with a couple of Margie's friends. How fun to watch tahe NY Giants win while in NYC! I myself was rooting for the underdog Giants, so I had a good time cheering them on with the locals. Afterwards, I was heading back to the hotel and there were various groups of cheering Giants fans yelling out to each other and the world at large. There was even a NYPD car playing music over its loudspeaker. Maybe work will let me go to the victory parade on Tuesday. (yeah, right!)

AWWW

Have any of you ever seen that Pedigree dog food commercial? The one where they say, for every dog chosen, there is one that isn't, so Pedigree donates, blah blah blah? So when the potential adopter walks up to the cage, the dog puts on his best smile before the person walks away? It's so sad I almost want to cry every time I see it. Echo, the dog, puts on his best smile and the person actually walks away! OMG, I'm tempted to donate to the ASPCA every time I see the commercial.