Archive for the 'Travel' Category
August 11th, 2008
(3 Votes)
Last month I was asked by Nico, a good friend of mine to deliver a training at the Train the Trainers conference held in a village near Pitesti. This is kinda’ sorta’ the first time ever since I’m an Alumnus to be an external at a national AIESEC conference, so I was quite surprised … in a good way :D.
I must say they did everything right in the way they handled me … a month in advance notice, numerous reminders and documents explaining the agenda, objectives, transportation, etc. I’m usually very hard to please regarding these things. Well believe me I could not say a bad word, not one, regarding the whole process from start to end. I quite honestly have never been better handled since I’ve became an Alumnus. It reminded me of an older similar experience.
I’ve had two things to prepare, a “Video’s in presentations” learning circle and a “Presentation skills” training. I knew I had to prepare these trainings as people from Dale Carnegie, real good trainers would be delivering there and I felt I had to live up to the expectations. It felt really good doing research and preparing my trainings, the Power Point actually Keynote presentation. It was reminding me of the old times :), nights spent preparing, the joy of delivering, the satisfaction of doing a good job.
December 14th, 2007
(5 Votes)
Hey guys,
I never missed an LTS but this year it was really close. I’m glad I didn’t. It took some skill to convince my brother to drive 200km :). The drive there was nerve wreaking because of the poor quality of the road, tight turns and icy road. We arrived in the evening right in time for the Alumni session. I don’t think we’ve been so many ever. We talked from the heart about old times about the beginnings, challenges and advice. We definitely did our magic there. Afterwards all of us went to find a suitable place to try out the beautiful layer of snow that had just fallen down that evening and spent 3 good hours, riding downhill on plastic bags, banners or whatever we could get :).
November 30th, 2007
(7 Votes)
As you may have noticed I traveled a lot this year and to conclude my voyages, earlier this month I spent almost a week in Istanbul, Turkey. This was the first trip ever abroad together with my work colleagues. The main purpose of the voyage was a Cisco Networking Academy conference, but somewhere on the way I’ve made some adjustments :).
Once I debarked the plane in Istanbul I realized I had a an absolutely wrong mindset about Turkey. It’s so different from any country I visited so far. During the days spent in Istanbul, I tried to cover as much as I could of this wonderful city. This city is unique. It’s the only city in the world that spreads over two continents. I’ve visited the Mosques, the old and new parts of the city, toured on the Bosporus, got lost, spent huge amounts of money shopping, made full use of my negotiation skills, ate the best food ever and chilled out at the river side.
October 31st, 2007
(4 Votes)
Somewhere during the last days of September, I got on a plane with my brother with destination Venice, Italy. This is the second time I’m visiting Italy this year. In January Rome and now Venice. I’ve been traveling a lot this year. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, I always wanted to “see the world”, but after returning from Rotterdam, last summer, I’m beginning to feel anxious only at the thought of leaving again. Rotterdam took it’s toll on my personal comfort and it’s gonna take a while till I will be happy to travel again.Nevertheless once I was on the plane, I was alright. The ride was smooth and the view just before landing was breathtaking: an endless waterline full of small boats with their sails glittering in the orange sunset. The airfield was just a few feet away from the water.
We checked in at a nice hotel in a small town near Venice and after a 20 minutes bus ride we were there: a big square filled with buses and cars. The place where land ended and water began. As the whole city is built on pylons over the water, the only way to get around Venice is trough its maze of narrow streets and channels. From now on we either walked or took a boat to get us from one place to another. It took us a while to get accustomed before we started to explore Venice. In the two days we would walk in and out of Venice, visit the islands and enter lots souvenir shops.
July 19th, 2007
(2 Votes)
Planning
Going to Düsseldorf by car was my idea. Gwen was telling me about visiting a friend in Düsseldorf, by train. As I had a similar experience two years ago, I proposed to rent a car and have some fun together. The best part is that I came only with the idea. Martin and Gwen handled the rest (renting a car, checking gas prices, mapping routes).
Issues
Till Friday all was done, except a little thing that slipped our mind: Gwen doesn’t know to drive a stick-shift. Imagine: in the U.S., they actually give you the driver license on an automatic shift.
So, I was teaching Gwen about the “extra” pedal called the clutch. Things started OK, on the first try Gwen actually started the windshield wipers. After a nice test ride in the city all was prepared. We went home to pack and started our journey.
Well … not quite, a few meters of the parking lot Gwen managed to place the car in the middle of the road and because being stressed and all she couldn’t manage the fine moves of the clutch and gas pedal required to get the car moving forwards. OK, we moved … in small steps, hick-ups, engine dying, engine start, car shaking, hick-ups engine dying. As this kind of movement was killing the engine, building a long queue behind us and was not getting measurable results, I had to take over and drive a few blocks to a parking area.
