Viva Italia

So, after some 24 hours or so of travelling from Charleston and the usual joy of having one day bleed into another that accompanies overnight flights across the Atlantic, we finally arrived in Il Ciocco, the hotel here in Barga where the conference is to be held. Suffice to say, the scenery is fantastic - the hotel itself is situated some way up a hillside affording stunning views of Barga and the surrounding hills and mountains. Yes, mountains as we are close to the Apuan Alps. It's quite a new experience for me to look around and see snow capped mountains in the distance but i'm certainly enjoying it. To get to Barga from Pisa we took the train - a little over an hour's journey through some similarly wonderful scenery. You can certainly tell that it's a different region of the world.

Since arriving, its pretty much been a combination of science at the conference mingled with trying to sleep off the jet lag as well. I'm still kind of groggy and not 100% sure whether i'm coming or going quite yet. Hopefully it'll be the end of it today. The conference itself has been good so far - the chance to meet and chat with some of the bigger names in this specific field. But when you've got that scenery outside, it's quite distracting to say the least. Anyhow, having now digested breakfast, i guess it's time for me to head downstairs to the morning lectures. Fun, fun, fun. Hopefully there'll be some of the Italian coffee to keep us from nodding off to easily....

Fun With Flights

With having two visits to the UK in the next few months (one at the end of April for my friend Phil's wedding, one in August/September for my cousin's and brother's wedding - not to each other i add), i've spent an awful lot of time recently browsing the numerous travel websites out there in search of a reasonably priced flight back over the Atlantic and have come to one conclusion. These days, there just aren't any. Actually, that's not strictly true, if you hunt around a lot, then you can get good deals but, to be frank, i haven't got the time or the energy to do just that. Okay, well maybe i have the time on occasion but it's such a grinding task that leaves you with your head tangled in knots over airport changes, times, different time zones, connections and any number of other things. Of course, the fact that i've now joined a specific Air Miles program doesn't really help matters much, despite the fact that it doesn't really limit my choice of airlines (there is some Skyteam alliance thing whereby a number of airlines all give air miles to the other's members as well as their own).

Anyway, after spending much time going cross-eyed and banging my head against a brick wall, i finally managed to sort out flights for my trip back home in August (the flights for April were booked sometime ago and were a bit less of a headache). Some reasonably extensive searching and cross-referencing allowed me to book flights separately from Charleston to Boston and then to London Heathrow (instead of my usual Manchester) via Paris Charles De Gaulle (which should no doubt be an experience). Okay, so there's an extra change in there but it gives me a couple of extra segments for the air miles (they're important) but also a few extra miles as well. Plus, it was $200 cheaper than the best alternative i could find through the various travel websites. I guess it just goes to show that shopping around doesn't hurt. Now all i have to do is survive my brief stay (a couple of hours) in France. Shouldn't be TOO difficult for an Englishman!

Happy St Patricks Day

To all Irish, Irish-American, Semi-Irish-American, Possibly-Irish-American, Wanting-to-be-Irish-American and Pretending-to-be-Irish-American-to-get-drunk-today, a very happy St Patricks Day to you.

I advise going to this link:

The St Patricks Chin Song

A colleague at work forwarded it to me. It's kinda freaky but also very funny. Now i'm off to kiss me blarney stone and drink some guinness. Top of the morning to ya! :-)