So since I decided to ditch the airport dude, I went on my own to Park City yesterday afternoon.  It was a really pretty drive, and the town was completley cute and rustic!  Park City is the place where they had the 2002 Olympics, and is the home to the Sundance Film Festival.  I’m really glad I took the time to go and check it out.  There were a ton of cute shops, with modern trendy boutiques sprinkled in the mix.  There were also everything from furniture to new-age hippie stores.  It was slightly reminiscent of downtown Fort Collins, but more.. I don’t know, rustic.

The rental car I have has GPS in it, and let me say – its been GREAT in a new town!  I have not been lost once – which is a huge stretch for me and my typical detours into the ghetto.  More on that later.

So far, Salt Lake City is absolutely gorgeous. OK, in the mornings its a bit smoggy, but that burns off by the end of the day. 

The trip over was uneventful - I was completely exhausted after a long 4th of July weekend, and fell asleep a few times on the way over.   There was a guy on my shuttle, and flight, and rental car place, so we started talking because that was kind of weird.  We ended up staying in hotels that were two blocks away from each other, which is pretty nice because it made for an instant dinner partner.

The sites I’m visiting in SLC are a ways apart from each other!  One is located about 20 miles south, so I visited that one yesterday – and the one I’m at today was 20 minutes north.  There is a world of difference between the two places, and the scenery has definitely been worth looking at!  There was a few wind power fans scattered on the way out yesterday, and the mountain range was a very scenic look at what the area is about.   I’ve talked to a lot of people, and everyone is into outdoorsy types of things.  Its a very mixed culture of LDS and Natives, stuff like that.

Yesterday, I went to the Gateway shopping center – which is very much like the Domain in Austin – walked around and had dinner and did some shopping with the airport dude.  It was OK – my friend Ruben (who is coming in to SLC today – YAY!) told me a couple of places to go check out, so I went up there and checked out some Utah beer to see what it was all about.. (yes, that was slightly sarcastic seeing as how its lower in alc volume).  It was a pretty fun time up until the airport dude propositioned me.  Then, I got angry and took off. Way to sour a good day! Bah, frequent travellers! I know all about it and all, but sheesh.. I thought I did a good job of saying “not interested” but I guess not.

It makes me look forward to Ruben getting back here.  Will definitely be more settled hanging out with him for tomorrow before I go to the next destination.   I think tonight I’ll try to take a trip out to Park City and see the Olympic Village or something. Alone. LOL.

I’ve been grounded for quite a while – I actually really haven’t been anywhere since going to the valley for the wedding.  Its actually kind of strange, and I do believe its the longest period of time I’ve been in town in one span over the last four years or so.  I’m enjoying it on one level – but on another, I totally have the itch to leave!

I was planning on taking a road trip to Houston in two weekends, but I have to get my car out of the body shop first.  I have a trip planned in July, and am trying to plan one for end of Q2 (if I get off my butt and take care of a few things first!).

Twice in the last month, I’ve taken a road trip to the valley.  I’ve made this trip countless times over the last eight years that I’ve lived in Austin.  I go to see my family, my friends and the place I grew up in.  My parents and grandparents all live in the same houses and I’ve watched the area grow from afar.. its funny, while it was the place I grew up in – its no longer my home. I was never really comfortable there, honestly, but going back always brings me back to days when life was so starkly different, I hardly remember the person I was.  I’ll pass by a landmark that will bring a memory back, and will more often then not sit there and shake my head with a chuckle.

The road to and from the RGV is about a five and a half hour drive for me, and I pass the time with a soundtrack and landmarks.  Here’s a photo log from Edinburg back to Austin of the checkpoints I have that help me pass the time.

Edinburg. My hometown. I know you don’t see anything of it, but there isn’t anything on my way out anyways.

The Border Patrol checkpoint just south of Falfurrias. I typically stop at the rest stop that is 3 miles on.

George West. I got a ticket right there once.

The big hill.  This marks 2 1/2 hours into the trip, with 2 1/2 hours to go. Off of I-37.

The fence south of San Antonio.  I don’t know why, but this is where I start calling people.

The Alamodome.  I don’t go by 410, I take 37 to 35 and pass through downtown San Antonio.

After this, its all city and no more country scenery.

Once, I discussed the trip with a friend and we had the complete opposite view of the trip home. I feel like the city part is the fastest moving and easy part of the drive, and she thought the country part took no time but the city part was killer.  It actually kind of attests to our attitudes about where to live in general, too.

Why is the coffee in the Austin airport so hideously bad?  I’m picking up on the conspiracy – it seems Panchitos tacos and Earl Campbell’s both get their coffee and cups from the same place.  The sad part is, there is really only one size of coffee cup, so you always get one huge cup of grody joe.  Its the only coffee I will put creamer in – it masks the taste well.

Down the terminal some, there is an Austin Java.. I’ll have to see if they have a different coffee vendor or if they use the same one next time.

The good news is, I have finally reached a point where I can travel fashionably light.  I did a good job of packing exactly what I needed with room to spare – and am not checking a bag for the first time in a couple of years. Granted, this is the shortest trip I’ve taken in years too, but hey – I didn’t overpack!

I think I jinxed myself when I mentioned in the last post I wasn’t feeling so hot.

The downside to traveling through third world countries is always having to be conscious of what you eat and where you eat it.  This is my third trip here, and I think I’ve only had a bad reaction to something I ate once before now – however, I was better by the next day after my body rejected it and I puked whatever it was that wasn’t good up.

I’ve been pretty good about it this trip, too – especially since I have three people who haven’t been here before, and need to make sure they’re OK with whatever we eat also. We’ve been eating mostly at the hotel, restaurants around the site (and some are questionable so we are selective).  Well, Thursday night we ate separately, because I was busy printing off stuff for my upcoming house purchase. I ate in the upstairs lounge instead of the regular lounge, which typically there isn’t too much of a difference but I think in this case there was..

Long story short, something I ate recently has made me VERY ill.   Typically, I have an iron stomach – I can eat anything, and don’t really have too bad of an effect, even when people around me get sick.  Hell, I’ve been here through the water, ice, coffee, fruit, etc for months over here and really only had that one mishap that really took me less than three hours to get over.   Later on Thursday night, I got up feeling not well at all.  I’ll spare you the gory details, but I was up most of the night trying to get rid of it all.  You know you’ve got it bad when you are on the floor, and you wake up the next day with a sore neck from the backlash.

I remember briefly considering calling someone for help. I also actually at one point got up, felt really faint of head and ran out to the carpet so I wouldn’t crash on the tile. It was at that point that I actually began to freak out a little bit, but at that point I think I also felt less nauseated, so I went to bed and amazingly got some sleep.

Next day, I called my co-workers and told them I’d be going in later, and text messaged my manager to let him know I’d be out that morning. Its extremely difficult to be in the middle of a launch and get put out of commission, so I was up on email as much as I could be. I think that ended up being like, once.  I actually did get up and forced myself to go to work – BAD IDEA.  I didn’t have any physical reaction, but it was at the point where I got to the site when I realized how weak I actually was. Stupid me, always pushing myself. Its a problem.

I sent the guys off for the weekend, and have spent the last day and a half sleeping and waking up, getting energy back.  I basically slept all of Friday night and Saturday morning – and haven’t really been able to leave the room.  It kills me to be over here and to not be able to do stuff!  Luckily, I’ve done most of it before, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on too much.. but still.  Al and Andrew from work arrived last night, so I met them downstairs and finally got something solid down.  I pretty much just picked at the bread, but I think that gave me enough energy to start recuperating a bit.

The RR guys wanted to go out and do stuff, but them having just gotten off the plane, and me not feeling so well – we’ve all had a lazy day. Everyone here is so nice – I’ve ordered room service and the hotel staff asked if I needed to go to the clinic – in which I said no to at first – but then I ended up going down there today when I realized its been about 48 hours and I’m still not feeling so hot.  I felt better for a few hours earlier, but I’m right back to being nauseated.  They gave me some anti-nausea drugs and something to rehydrate (I’ve got a MONSTER headache), so we’ll see how that works.. I have GOT to get better before I get on that plane on Wednesday..

Its really interesting, being the experienced one in the bunch. I’m the youngest person and only female traveler in this group, but I’m also the one showing everyone how to live, what to expect, what to look out for, and what to look forward to. Its honestly really great to be able to play tour guide – I realized today that these people that I’ve barely met, and who have only seen a side of me that is all work – have a lot of trust in me to get them around and to keep them relatively happy.  I feel really good knowing that I am absolutely giving them a good experience here, especially looking back on my first trip over.  It was really disorienting to go to a new place alone, and the guys I was here with weren’t too helpful.. it really showed me how I’d have done it differently, so I did!

The last two days were pretty good – the car rides home weren’t nearly as insane as the first couple. Well, it wasn’t to me anyways – I’m used to the traffic jams and crazy things you see on way home.  I was really surprised to see my coworkers were so shocked with the conditions surrounding us, but I guess it just shows how used to it I’ve gotten.  While our car rides to work are always at night, we’re always going home from work right after dawn breaks and morning traffic is at its worst.  After spending the first car ride letting them take it all in, I spent the second car ride home pointing out the incredible nuances that you see.

Examples (in which I’m planning on taking pictures of tomorrow to post):
- You’ll see fifty near-accidents every day. They rarely hit (unless I’m their fare apparently). Its like Crazy Taxi, only better. Or worse. Whatever.
- People live in shantis, even on the side of major highways.  You’ll see high cliffs piled with shantis, and piles of cement, tin and wood that people use as their homes.
-Cockfighting is HUGE here.  Its not uncommon for people to put their pet roosters on display outside of their front cement doors, either in a small wired cage or on a wire resembling a bent hanger.
- You’ll see cats wandering around, but NEVER see dogs unless they are sniffing luggage at hotels.  I tripped out Dario yesterday, asking him, “Hey. Do you see any dogs?” *looks around* “NO! Where are ze dogs?”  I motion eating and say, “No gato tacos…”  him: *shocked look* “Zey eat them? ZEY EAT THEM!!!” I just shrugged.
- All of the shop signs are distributed by one advertiser.  They are all identical, but all have different names written in marker. They seem to change very six months, so I pointed them out and was VERY hard pressed to find an old one.
- Markets are also set up on the side of major roads.  We drive by three or four different sections of row markets, full of fruit, veggies, and meat.
- Speaking of the meat, its all cut in slabs and put on display on the cement unrefrigerated.  It really looks unhealthy.
- I love the billboards. They’re so interesting, very high and posted on tons of scaffolding. Its at risk to blow over in a typhoon, and I’ve seen some torn apart – but they are always rebuilt.

Hmm, speaking of – no Typhoons in site, except in the Gulf of Thailand. Too far!

Ah, well.. I had a whole other half of a post that was actually very reflectional – but when I hit publish, my connection failed and I lost it. Maybe later I’ll be able to re-write that… that’ll be part 2 later on.

I’m not feeling so hot today (but am in good spirits;)), so I’m off!

Tonight’s harrowing tale will be about the journey that took place after a very long and arduous day at work. Ahem.

The afternoon started innocently enough. Ominously enough, actually now what I think about it. My site team and I finished up our work after a VERY long and challenging day, and decided to go back to the hotel to beat traffic. Well. Steve, Ramesh and I were apparently too early to catch a taxi (though I did warn the group that traffic would be murder if we left any later), and after about 10 minutes all decided to go back into Eastwood for some food. We headed to a restaurant called “Heaven’n'Eggs” and had some breakfast food for dinner. I had never introduced a 32 year old to Pancakes before, but that’s a story for another day.

After that, three of us went to catch a taxi to get to our two hotels. The first taxi I stopped rejected us – mostly because we were going to Makati and traffic is bad going into the city. The second one looked relatively safe, and took us up for a flat yet raised rate, with the disclaimer that it could take us 40 minutes to get back. We all got into the taxi and started chit-chatting with the taxi driver, who promptly took us a different way than I was used to going home since our co-worker as at a different hotel. No biggie, right?

Well, we get a good ways down, and then ran into a patch of congested traffic while heading towards the Ortegas district. Our driver took it upon himself to jump the line and begin to drive in the wrong lane to get us to the front of the line. At that point, the traffic controller switched, and suddenly we had a whole line of cars coming head-on towards us!! He seemed to be an experienced driver and tried to weasel his way into the correct lane, but ended up being so close to both sides that the righthand review mirror was almost rubbing up against our side of traffic, and oncoming traffic had to jump a curb not to hit us. Motorcyclists were knocking on the windows to curse him out.

Ok. Not too bad. We make it through, and then HE DOES IT AGAIN…. only this time, it works. We got onto the main highway with no problems. Until… he decided to take a shortcut. Now, he had very good (and distracting) conversationalist skills, and we all learned about the direction of Saudi law enforcement and the prices of LPC fuel today compared to 3 months ago. We also got a lecture about the level of skill it requires to drive in Manila. This was appropriate, especially since he had just taken a “shortcut” through a crowded pedestrian shopping center. After about 10 minutes of bumper-to-bumper traffic (in which I saw such interesting bumper sticker saying “Bring God back into Politics!”), we finally made it through to Ramesh’s hotel. We dropped him off, and took off to head around Ortegas, towards Makati. He decided to skip traffic through a small plaza of hotels, and we were doing the typical close swerve of traffic to get onto the street… until, he side-swiped a car on its way out from Starbucks.

At this point, I’m looking around to see what happens next. The driver of the other car JUMPS out and starts cussing out our driver, who immediately gets out and starts pointing at his right review mirror to show that he just swiped the car a little bit. They sit there yelling at each other for a good five minutes, all the while I’m glancing out the window at the center’s security guards looking towards us. It escalates a little bit, and the guards (who by the way, wear long-ass rifles as their arsenal) walk over to help settle the matter. The other driver asks Steve and I if we saw anything and we elect to stay out of it as we’re looking for other taxis that may be around to take us home. I decide staying still is a better option, and after about ten more minutes the other angry driver takes off. Our driver chit-chats to the officers, and we take off 2 minutes later. HOLY CRAP.

At that point, I knew exactly where I was. I saw where we were in relation to Edsa, and could see the familiar Makati City skyline from the car. Light at the end of the tunnel!!

Then, he unexpectedly took a detour through a relatively safe street. I could see the MegaMall from there, and still had a pretty good idea of where we were. We ended up on the highway for about five seconds before he took a third detour through the side in attempts to get closer to Makati.

THIS detour actually scared the crap out of me. We were suddenly in a side district full of markets, pedestrians, and shantis. I don’t think I would have been too nervous if there wasn’t a van edging up and looking down at us the entire time. However, this wasn’t still wasn’t TOO bad, and I didn’t actually feel like locking the door until we took a left onto the slightly more industrial road. When we got to the area that was full of garages, auto shops and abandoned jeepneys, I decided that I couldn’t make heads or tails of my surroundings. THEN I locked the doors. We zig-zagged down a couple of more streets, and we went down another road to where we were suddenly in Rockwood. I recognized Rockwood and the PowerPlant mall, and felt slightly better knowing that we were at least… 10 (really??? 10?? its been 60!!) minutes away from home.

At this point, the driver could probably sense my impatience and growing ebbs and flows of anxiety based upon location. He had a few more near-misses and gave us the sense we were playing bumper cars through the business district, until we ended up on the main drag down Ayala down to the hotel. Two more turns, and I knew the neighborhood enough to jump out of there and walk back, but elected not to since he had tried so hard to get us back. After being in that car for 90 minutes, I was entirely ready to be back. We try to get him to leave us off across the street, but no such luck. He stalled until we got back to the rotunda, where we generously tipped him and got OUT OF THE CAR!!

Steve and I walked through hotel security, with me cussing a bit about how that was my worst ride of all time here. Oddly enough, I wished I had photo-documented it…

Hello, I’m Rebecca and since it was a little bit my idea to have guest bloggers on this site, it is my turn.

I am in San Francisco this weekend with my boyfriend Clint. Clint is here Mon-Thurs of pretty much every week consulting so he is showing me his stomping ground while away from Denver. So far, so fun.

I arrived on Friday night and after a short cab ride into the city we had dinner at Ozumo (http://www.ozumo.com/). Ozumo is next door to our hotel (http://www.hotelgriffon.com/) and I’ve been hearing about how delish the food is for months. It definitely lived up to expectation. We ate and drank and took in the Asia-cool scene at the restaurant. Honestly, I feel infinitely cooler since walking in the door of the restaurant/bar/club. After dinner we went to a bar down the street (http://www.thecosmopolitancafe.com/).

Saturday we went on a walking tour of the city. San Francisco really is lovely. I like the tall buildings juxtaposed with the bridges and the ocean and then there is an air of celebration here. We walked through Chinatown (oh the smells of yumminess).

We managed to hold out until we got to the North Beach area and had Italian food at a place called Mona Lisa. It was Italian kitsch but I like kitsch and the food was A+. We continued the walk and went up and down some pretty steep hills San Francisco style. We shopped and looked and laughed. Good times in the city.

Later in the afternoon we met up with one of my oldest friends from San Antonio Josh. We go back to age 11 which strangely is 20 years ago. 20 years? It was good to catch up with him since it’s been a while. We went to the Dogpatch neighborhood (every neighborhood here has a funny name – Tenderloin is one because the cops used to like to go there and eat cheap beef) to a winebar called Yield. All of the wine was either organic or made green and it was good stuff.

He dropped us off in the Mission District and we watched the Patriots stick it to the Jaguars at a sports bar. Then we had Indian food for dinner which was served to us by at least 3 generations of the same family. Then we went to a place called the bottom of the hill to see another of my old school San Antonio friend’s band play. The band is Oliver Future and they sounded great. Here is what they look like.

To hear them, go to myspace.com/oliverfuture and they play in Austin a lot. So go.

So now it’s Sunday morning and I’m writing this and Clint is catching up on some Warcraft. We are going to Napa in a little while.

Ahh.. its my home away from home.  I spent a total of two months there in 2007.  Kumusta!!

The way to the Hotel was actually nice and familiar – its dark, people are out, the ginormous billboards are showing their unique ads, and the traffic is a nightmare.  Yup. I’m back.  When I asked if it was the rainy season (their version of winter), my driver noted that it has been raining pretty hard, and informed me that we’re on typhoon watch.  Woohoo!  I have a thing for hurricanes and typhoons. I’m absolutely fascinated with how they form and the directions they take, so the second I got online I started taking a look at Typhoon2000.com to see what the deal is.  Nothing bad, but there are a few tropical disturbances out there.

Now, since I’ve spent so much time in this hotel, I got off the car and was immediately flanked by the concerge staff: “Welcome back, ma’am! How long are you staying this time?”  “Hi Ma’am!” “Hi Ms. Monica!!” .. its actually good to know they remember me. Its actually really comforting that they are all there and so friendly even after four months!  I checked in and got up to my room, and  caught up with a few of the staff members I would see on a regular basis.  Its a bit late, so I’ll have to go up in the evening tomorrow to see my favorite gay lounge officer, JoJo! I hope he’s still working here.  He’s a sweetheart, and always complimenting me OR telling me I look like crap.  I appreciate the honesty.

I unpacked, settled in, took a shower and ordered some Pad Thai from room service.  Yum-o..

Its 2am here.  Since its a weekend, I’m going to screw up my sleep schedule so I can go out and about tomorrow during the day.  Typically, I’m on US hours.  I need to go shopping for a few items I forgot in my haste to leave.  At least I remembered my int’l cell phone.. Luckily, there is a huge shopping center across the street (which my old manager’s cousin was architect for, oddly enough) – they’ve actually had a new section under construction for the last year, and its finally open! Can’t wait to check it out tomorrow.  Beginning Sunday morning (tonight for you guys back home), I’ll sleep in four-hour increments until its time to go to work on Monday night.  I get up at about 5:30 or 6:00pm, and head into work.  I should be meeting some co-workers for the first time, too! I’m excited.  We’ve been working together for months via conference calls, but have yet to meet.

When its daytime, I’ll start to take some pictures to post.. in the meantime, feel free to peruse through my other Manila albums from last year – I made about half of them private (the ones with people in them) so if you have a yahoo login – login, befriend me, and you can see the good stuff.: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myvov/collections/72157602850078220/

Night everyone!  I’m going to finish eating, have a glass of wine, watch a movie and start on my funky weekend sleep schedule. Paalam!