Weekend #2: Portugal & The Algarve

Since Mike was in Portugal for work, I flew out and met him in Lisboa (aka Lisbon). We had heard the Algarve (southern coast) was definately much cooler than Lisboa so we took a train down to Lagos for the weekend.

We were SO happy to finally arrive at our hotel. Here is Mike posing outside our room built on the hillside.

We headed straight to the pool. Poor Mike was so exhausted from his work trip (see below post) that he slept for a few hours.

This is me thinking (literally): "I love this place. I don't ever want to leave."

After Mike got a few hours of sleep at the pool, we walked around on the trails below our hotel that overlooked the cliffs.

There was this one cliff that Mike saw that he really really wanted to walk to for some reason...the only problem was that we had to go underneath this big glaring "danger" sign. I made Mike pose in front of it just in case it was the last picture of our lives.

Mike calls this his "Taiwanese pose."

On Sunday we tried to go to church in Lagos but it was moved to a neighboring town. We ended up checking out the town and then taking the bus back to Lisboa. Here is the street of the church:

We learned that Lagos was famous during Portugal's 14th-and 15th-century Age of Discovery. Henry the Navigator had his vessels built here and left for the voyages of exploration down the coast of West Africa.

Mike enjoying ice cream on the boardwalk before the trip back to Lisboa.

I love Portugal.

Mike's work trip to Portugal

Update on Mike's second week at work:

Mike's boss had him to fly to Portugal for a leadership summit for the top people in Barclays Western Europe. He was there Wed-Fri. He was up until 3am with his team of four the first night in an attempt to finish his boss' presentation for the next day.

The hotel where they had their summit was in Cascais (an hour or so outside of Lisbon on the coast). I was so jealous because it was too pretty and I was still staying in our dive of a flat in London, but he said he really didn't get to see much of the outside since he was in meetings all day/night. Here was the inside conference room.

The second night Barclays rented out a national palace to hold their evening dinner.

Here is the ballroom where they had their dinner.

Portugal has a famous style of music called Fado. Barclays had a famous Portuguese Fado singer come perform at the palace. Mike also got a CD of her music. They didn't get back until 1pm the second night.

Needless to say, at the end of the week when I flew out to meet Mike, he was so exhausted he was zombie-Mike... :) ...but he said it was an amazing experience.

Weekend #1: The London Basics

Buckingham Palace.

We are in our church clothes because we went right after church.

Here is Mike in front of Queen Victoria fountain.

I love the below pic of Westminster Abbey. We were planning on going to 3pm Evening Song but got there 10 minutes too late.

Parliament & Big Ben.

We spent the rest of Sunday exploring the National Gallery. There happened to be a huge Hare Krishna festival going on in Trafalgar Square right outside. It was beautiful.

And last but not least, here is a random pub.

We snapped this pic on the walk back to the tube. We think it pretty much sums up London.

Preggers belly

For some reason this last week has caused exponential belly growth. I used to be small...not anymore! We walk so much and are usually carrying bags so my lower back has really been hurting.

These were taken on our walk to the Canada Water tube. This is our neighborhood.

Orientation at Barclays

Mike finished orientation at Barclays. The last event was a trip on the London Eye.

My HP office

Okay so I know we haven't been posting much lately (we've been so busy), but hopefully the next few posts will make up for it.

Here is my HP office. Although it's not too far from our place, commute requires three different tube lines. The tube is so packed in the morning I can barely sqeeze in. Welcome to London.

Right next to my building is the ancient Roman wall that surrounded Londinium.

My office is also next door to the Museum of London (free!). I stop by on my lunch breaks. On Wed I attended a tour on the Great Fire of London (1666).

We made it

Our first adventure on Sunday was to try to find each of our offices. Mine is off the St. Paul's stop. We walked around forever trying to find it.

Here is Mike's office in Canary Wharf.

Our offices couldn't be in more opposite places architecturally. All the buildings around Mike's office are super modern with glass and steel. My area is in "the city" surrounded by the old Londinium wall (the original London back in Roman times) so all the buildings are super old.

Final countdown

We're practically on our way to London.

I'm excited to see this...

(Featherstone Castle)

Mike's excited to see this... (Hadrian's wall)

And someday I hope we get over the shock of paying 400 pounds/week to live here:

(Surrey Quays, London)

TV Shows

M & I fly to London on Friday morning. We are bringing our portable DVD player. We wanted to buy a TV series or something to keep us entertained, but we have no idea what to get. Does anyone have any good suggestions?

I should probably mention we have already exhausted the following shows: Arrested Development, Lost, The Office, and Flight of the Concords.

Any other good TV show suggestions?

LEAD is done for the year

So LEAD is done for the year...and MAN it's been a crazy term. LEAD is the only required class for all full-time students here at the GSB, and the cool thing is it's actually taught by second-year students. All incoming students take it during their first term. The class starts off with a crazy weekend trip up to Wisconsin in August called a Learning Outdoor Experience (LOE), which is basically a chance to everyone to get hammered, party, and get to know each other. After LOE, the actual classwork starts--conflict management, communication, leadership, team dynamics, and other so-called "soft skill" classes.

Second-year students actually lead these discussions (called "modules"), using a combination of prepared material and discussion forum. The idea is to get everyone there thinking about themselves--the program mantra is "self-awareness," and the topics are geared toward getting the class to think about the people side of business. Too many students come here thinking they need to learn the harder skills...yes, you need to know how to value a business, but you can teach anyone on the street how to do that. Business is still a person-to-person interaction and I think that too many of my fellow students forget that.

Last term, applications went out for the next batch of LEAD Facilitators, or "facils," are they're known around here, and I just knew I needed to apply. Of over 100 people who applied, I was one of the 40 accepted, and this last term was our spring training. We spent the first 5 weeks of the term developing and practicing the content for our modules and then spent the last four weeks delivering the content to part-time and weekend students. The spring is a different atmosphere from the fall; the spring students take LEAD because they want to, whereas the fall students take LEAD because they are required to. Needless to say, the atmosphere in the fall can be a bit more hostile, simply because the class is required.

Anyhow, the spring was great and I learned a great deal about myself and got to work with some really amazing people. My fellow facils are the pick of the class and I feel quite privileged to be given the chance to work with them. I've got the summer off, but things pick right up the first week of September as we get ready for the fall students. The nice thing is, since we've already delivered the content once, the fall is goes a lot more smoothly, so we get to spend more time hanging out with the first years--acting as mentors and helping them get through the crazy fall term.

The pics are from a practice run-through and one of the classes that I co-lead during the spring. My buddy Eric Szmurlo, another facil, always has a camera with him and he got these. Erin loves them.

Happy Birthday Shanny

I am adding the beach pics my mom just sent.

Check out our sand castle (okay, Nathan really made it and I watched). We love the beach.

Happy Birthday Shanny!

Surprise!

I flew home this past weekend to surprise Shanny for her birthday. It was so much fun. It was the first time I had seen Isabelle. So cute.

Here are the Sprinkles cupcakes we got for Shanny. I decided Red Velvet is definately the best.

I took Nathan to seminary on the last day (aka: Irvine waffles and ice cream day). Yes, I know I look super tired - hey it was 6am! He showed me some of Heather's graffiti art around the city.