I find myself back in Canada this week working the same event I worked last year for HP, a two city, two day event. Just like last year, it's Toronto and Montreal again.
The flight from Houston to Toronto wasn't that bad, but it was on a tiny 3 seat-per-row express jet. One member of the team got bumped from the flight, so another took the $500 travel voucher and gave his seat up too. This would come back to haunt them, however, as the luggage made the trip on our Continental flight while they waited for Air Canada hours later. Needless to say the baggage got lost in the airport when we landed Monday afternoon, and wasn't brought to the hotel until Tuesday, after the Toronto portion of the event. We had a clothes collection for Miles and James as a joke.
Back to Monday: I was one of the lucky ones picked to be a driver, and overcame a slight fear/discomfort of mine of having to drive in a foreign city. I escaped the ordeal with only 1 slightly illegal right turn coming out of the airport, and 1 u-turn, which really should be blamed on Christin, as I was following her to the office to set up and started to turn down the correct street only to see her speed through it in front of me.
Set up Monday went more of less smoothly, and we had pizza delivered to the Toronto campus, which is absolutely stunning btw. Lots of windows, very open, and a good size. It is one of the few campuses that HP owns outright and is not paying anything on it. We were spoiled in Toronto; Montreal's office is much much smaller.
Tuesday I worked the event. I had the same session throughout the whole day, and ended up driving the slides,which is something I hadn't done in past events. The slide deck was a mess and I had to keep switching between 4 separate presentations, but as the day went on I got pretty good at it. From my standpoint, the event went very well.
After the event we had did a team dinner with some of the Toronto folks at Milestones, the same restaurant that we wrapped up last year's Toronto event with. I had the salmon last year and it was delicious, but i decided to branch out and try their Italian black pepper steak and shrimp meal. It also came with garlic mashed potatos and asparagus. Very delcious. The night was topped off with pleasant conversation with Norm from the Toronto office, and he gave me some restaurant suggestions and a few things to experience while in Montreal. The Montreal event wraps up Thursday, but I am staying until Sunday to experience the city. Dan is also flying in today (Wed), so the weekend should be a blast!
Montreal side of things to come next post.
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