Todd's Birthday Dinner

The guys in Jackson took Todd out for a birthday dinner.  A real southern dinner.  He said it was DELICIOUS and had tons of flavor.  I think it looks kinda gross.  

 

Goodbye Sunshine

Our plan was to go to Universal Studios on our last day in Orlando but on our way there we decided to have an easy day instead.  So we went to the outlet malls (I spent way too much at the LuLu and Nike outlets) then to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner then we went to a movie. It was such a nice and relaxing day.

Back at the hotel we sat on our porch ate our cheesecake and watched the light show.  What a perfect ending to our last day.  

Then I came home to this!

Disney's Magic Kingdom

Once the work was done Saturday we had the night to go play at Disneyworld.  It was so much fun.  Todd went the whole day and then me and some friends from work met him at 4:00. Disney is totally different when you don't have kids with you.  We scheduled our time and hit the park.  We managed to go on 7 rides and watch the parade.  It was perfect. 

 

Celina and I 

Leon, Colby, Celina, Todd and I on the Small World ride

In the Tiki Room

I sent this picture to Traci - because she hates the turkey legs at Disney. I should have bought her the shirt!!   

It wouldn't be a day at an amusement park without funnel cake

Todd was so excited to see the Main Street Electric Parade - he hadn't seen it since he was a kid.  

Orlando

Off I go again - to Orlando for kick-off meetings.  I started and finished a new book (The Silent Governess).

Did some outside running with Mickey - this short trail nearly killed me off when I had to run 7 miles.  I looped and looped and looped some more.  I even added in some extra miles by running through the parking lot.

 

The view from my room

 We took a midnight trip to Steak-n-Shake for Celina's birthday.

 This time presenting on stage was a lot easier and Todd was there to watch.  When I walked out on stage I heard a whistle and couldn't believe he would do that - then after he told me it wasn't him.  Ha ha. 

Todd met me for the weekend instead of flying home so we got to spend our date night at Downtown Disney.  Eating delicious sundaes from Girhadelli's. 

 

I did my first Zumba class - we had to represent in our Nu Skin workout gear.  I'm not sure my body was made to shake like that.

With some of the marketing girls in our sweet Nu Skin gear.

Fort Lauderdale

I had to take a whirlwind trip for work.  I flew to Ft. Lauderdale  for a 1 day meeting then flew home the next day.  It was 2 days of travel and 1 day of meetings.  At least it was warm while I was there and I was able to get in a couple of runs on the beach and eat breakfast sitting on my outside patio. 

A day of travel

This morning at 6:00 am Brussels time I got a call from my coworker telling me our flight home was canceled. I tried to call or get online and couldn't get my call to go through so Todd tried calling and ended up waiting on hold for about 1 1/2 hours. I did what I could from the hotel (nothing but stress and talk to Todd) then when I got to the airport I got my flight from Brussels to Atlanta re-set up but the flight home from there was canceled due to snow. We were delayed an hour but after 10 hours in the air and 2 lunch services we made it to Atlanta.

Then the fun began.

We got in and went through customs. Then had to pick up luggage (mine was one of the VERY LAST) then I had to find a ticket agent to help me. In order to talk to someone about my flight I had to wait in line for someone to tell me to wait in line to recheck my bag then wait in another very long line to go through security AGAIN to exit the airport. Then I had to pick up my bags again (which took SOOOOOO long). Then I finally got into the line to talk to the ticket agent. My flight was to Salt Lake was cancelled but there is another flight tonight which I am on standby for. As of right now my flight leaves at 10 pm and arrives in Salt Lake at 12:20 tomorrow morning (midnight). Which means IF I get on the flight I will have been traveling today for 26+ hours. Let's hope I get on the flight or my next option is a 6:00 am flight tomorrow or the 5:00 pm flight. I am very tired and just want to be home at this point. I'm not big on work travel (although I've been doing A LOT of it lately) and I really hate traveling alone. When things don't go as planned in situations like this I don't deal well and it has been a long and stressful day.

Here's to hoping I get on my flight!

A quick update: I did NOT get on my flight. I slept in the airport and then was the 2nd to last person to get on a flight the next afternoon. I did not sleep in a bed for 48 hours and traveled for 39 hours. UGH.

Brussels Airport

A few awesome things at the airport in Brussels.

A coke machine with the "boy peeing" coke.

vacuum hand dryers (awesome)

Belgian Waffles

This is pretty much the BEST food I've ever eaten in my life. I opted for the one covered in real whip cream and chocolate. YUMMY!!! I didn't care one bit that I had chocolate all over my hands and face by the time I was done or the fact that I was cruising around the cobblestone of downtown Brussels in high heels freezing my butt off. It was soooooo worth it!

Driving in the snow

Apparently it doesn't snow a lot in Brussels. This picture was out of the back window of the hotel shuttle taking us to the Nu Skin office. It was about 3 miles away and it took us about 25 minutes. Most of the time was spent trying to get up this "hill" and over a speed bump. I'll tell you what our driver never got frustrated - it was impressive. I would have the passengers out pushing. Most of the office staff had trouble getting to the office and a trip that is usually under 30 minutes was taking about 2 hours that morning.


If you ask me it wasn't a lot of snow.

Sleeping on cots

The hotel I was booked at apparently didn't have any king beds available so I was given a room with 2 twins. European twins are NOT the same size as American twin beds. These beds were more like cots. I barely fit on the bed and slept horribly the first night so the next night I put the phone under my bed, moved the end table and pushed them together. It worked much better.

Brussels

I made it. The hotel left me these yummy chocolates.

Goodbye America

I'm headed back to Europe for the week. So this is my last fountain drink for a week. Sad.

Another actor selling Nu Skin

I'll be honest I had no idea who this was when I saw him (I didn't giggle like I did when I saw Ian Zeiring) but hey why not get another picture with an actor since I have to get a picture everyday. This is Kin Shriner from General Hospital. I've never watched GH but I read online he was the one who caught the bouquet at Luke and Laura's wedding on the show - so that's cool I guess.

In other news....tonight we ate at this small hole in the wall bar/grill that came highly recommended. I ate fried cajun gator (yummy, chewy and tastes like chicken), some sweet $2 nachos (very similar to gas station nachos with chili - also very yummy) and had buffalo wings with their very own homemade blue cheese dressing. It was a crazy meal and very fun and yummy. I was so full I couldn't finish my wings no matter how hard I tried.

Brussels

Tonight after work I quickly checked into my hotel, changed out of my work clothes and we headed for downtown Brussels. We walked around the cobblestone streets and window shopped. Went to the center of the city to walk around. I saw the opera a very old beautiful church (pictured below), the statue of the boy peeing (pictured below), the statue of the girl peeing (rather disturbing actually), the museums and main buildings in the square, walked down the main shopping street (one of the first high end malls), and went to dinner. I ate traditional Belgian food - beef stew with frites and topped it off with ice cream with the most amazing chocolate sauce ever. It was fun to hang out with the office staff outside of work and they took very good care of me. I have part of the day here again tomorrow so we might get to see a little more. The city is absolutely beautiful and the food was absolutely amazing. Too bad I don't get to spend more time here.

I forgot to mention...

One of the funniest things I saw in Moscow was that they have lots of porta potties out on the streets (not even for races....just there permanently on the streets) and in most of the sets there was almost always one that had a permanent occupant. Yes homeless people were living in the porta potties on the street. They would just be sitting in there with the door open looking out at the street. Convenient if you need a warm place and a bathroom I guess. I even saw one that a man and woman were both hanging out in just having a conversation like they were at home and I saw a guy who had a butane type heater in his to keep the place nice and cosy. It was so crazy to me!

Budapest

I asked the Moscow staff how early I should leave for my 9:50 flight to Budapest and they said because of how long it takes to get to the airport (due to traffic 2-3 hours) I should leave around 6:30. So I woke up early and took a taxi to the airport at 6:30 and it took 15 minutes to get there. The man drove like a maniac and there were no other cars on the road that early. I couldn't check in to my flight because I was so early so I sat out in the main area of the airport surrounded by smokers reading my book (btw...I've already finished 2 books and I'm only half way done with my trip - oh no). Finally I was able to check in and get through customs and on the flight. There was a high school hockey team on my flight which was crazy. I got taken on a bus out to the flight and kept worrying that I wasn't on the right flight because there were very few signs and everything was in Cyrillic and no-one spoke English. But I made it.

Luckily I had no major issues with my flight to Budapest or finding a taxi to take me to the office. My training went well and I got lots of work done then a few of the girls from the office walked me over to my hotel and out on the town.

We had a blast and stayed out until almost 11 and I had to wake up this morning at 4:15 am for my flight to Brussels. I'll sleep when I get home. :)

This is at the top of the hill on the "buda" side of the town

A better picture of the view that was behind me in the picture above.

Kata told me that I would have good luck if I touched the horse "there"
so of course I did....it's tradition

This sign was hilarious to me pointing to the toilets

Kata and I on the "pest" side at the square

The anonymous writer - his eyes were so creepy!

We had dinner at the "Spoon" restaurant which was on a riverboat
and it was an amazing view with amazing food.

For dinner I ate traditional Hungarian food. We got appetizers that included sausage, liver pate, and some other meats and spreads. I had goulash soup for my appetizer and then paprika veal with egg gnocchi for dinner and marzipan for desert. I was almost sick from eating so much but it was all delicious.