Random Babbling

I’m in Miami right now, staying at my college roommate’s house. We had a great weekend boating up to Ft. Lauderdale and back on the Intercoastal. I had lots of sunscreen, swim shirts, long bathing suit coverups, a hat, and massively oversized sunglasses on for the vast majority of the time on the water. Which was fine with me as long as I got to experience marina life. There are a whole lot more wealthy people in Broward County than I realized. The marina was stuffed with mega-yachts that dwarfed our not-too-small boat. I discovered that you can google the name of pretty much any yacht and made yourself ill with envy looking at photos of the interiors of these ridiculously extravagant ships (at those sizes, they cease being boats and become ships, in my opinion). Also, who the hell has so much money that they can not only afford one of these floating palaces but also the maintenance, gas, and marina dockage fees? (And can we totally be friends? I’m a great decorative accessory on a boat…)

I get home tomorrow night and have a few days to relax until I head out of town again – this time for work. Well, I guess there will be a little bit of pleasure thrown in there too. I’m excited that I somehow finagled my company to pay for me to go to our London office and then to the Budapest ones for meetings! So, not only do I get to return yet again to London, but I get to also return to Budapest – which I haven’t been to since my very first Euro-trip way the hell back in the day. And because I can’t leave well enough alone, I’ve managed to squeeze a visit to Krakow and Prague into the mix thanks to making a long weekend in the middle of the trip. Yay! More places to experience 🙂

London is also going to be new to me this trip because our offices are in an area that I haven’t explored yet (you’re thinking to yourself, really? there is one?). Definitely looking forward to checking out the East End, although I suspect that it may be too trendy for me to blend in there smoothly. And then I head to Krakow for a whirlwind solo 48 hours of exploring before jumping on a night train to Prague, where I’m going to meet up with a co-worker who is also a really good friend. We’re going to be doing a girls’ weekend so if there are any news stories about two crazy Americans in Prague at some point soon, you know who to blame…I somehow managed to convince her that we should take the night train to Budapest so we can maximize our sightseeing in Prague and minimize the hotel that can’t be expensed… I’m a freaking genius, lol! Actually, I’m really excited to be able to incorporate trains into this adventure because I do love me some trains. And because I’m older and have slightly more disposable income than the last time I meandered around that section of Europe, I sprang for a sleeper compartment for us. (Plus, I’m sure my co-worker would have balked at the idea if she thought she was going to be roughriding the rails and trying to sleep in a basic seat.) I’m hoping that in between work commitments, we’ll find some time to explore Budapest too…

And Adam Ant just released tour dates for the summer today. I’m looking at the schedule  to see if there are a few dates I can go play groupie. While he does have a concert scheduled on my birthday (yay, best present ever), he is NOT coming to Texas on this leg either (damn it, why isn’t someone on his team reading this blog and making this happen?). And most of the dates are at general admission-type places which always makes me hesitate because of my lack of height and the fact that most of the time, I cannot stand being in close proximity to that many people pushing and shoving. Sadly, I did not win the lottery this past week, so a command performance is out of my financial reach and buying VIP packages for multiple shows would definitely put a crimp on my budget for other travel expenses. I’m going to see at least one of those shows but I likely won’t be putting together a long road trip around this tour either…

So, April looks like it’s shaping up to be a better month than January was. Hoping that the rest of the year progressively gets better and better for me. I’m still going through some weird stretches where the world just seems a bit off. I have to imagine that our current political climate is not doing wonders for my outlook and honestly, at times I wish I could be willfully ignorant of the chaos going on in the world. But I’m trying to remind myself that generations prior have lived through much worse. And the personal things I’m dealing with right now won’t matter too much in five years time (at least that’s what I tell myself when I get too stressed about work and this god-forsaken insurance debacle with my condo which is STILL not moving an inch towards resolution – I seriously have to control my anger impulses every time I think about the inability of three separate insurance companies to take responsibility for their clients’ negligence – and there I go lining myself up for another round of “why is the world so damned f’ed up?”)…

I think it’s time to head to my friend’s backyard and spend some time gazing at their boat and reminding myself of fun times yet to come. And I’m sure I will be providing a recap of my European work trip but asking for forgiveness if I’m a little quiet on the blog for the next few weeks while I gallivant around this planet of ours. Stay healthy everyone…