Business travel…it's not that glamorous, trust me

DAY 23 of “Chancellor Watch”- Merkel prevails! She’ll lead as Schroder yields chancellorship, but her rivals will get 8 of the 14 ministries.

Thanks to those you who have sent email updates from home of late. Trust me, we love to hear what you are doing and what is going on in your corner of the world. And before another one of our friends remarks at the glamorous side of our recent travels and how their activities are not as exciting as ours, let me set the record straight...business travel is not all it’s cracked up to be.

In the past month, Buddy and I have separately traveled to Warsaw (3 times), London, Bristol, Paris, Chicago and multiple times to various German cities, including Frankfurt, Hanover, Hamburg, and Munich. In all those times, our extent of sightseeing has included the inside of taxis, airplanes, and trains, and visits to such exciting places as client data rooms, conference rooms, and suburbs of great cities, like Northfield, Illinois. Woo-hoo! Besides, my idea of sightseeing in London and Paris involves more than shopping at the duty-free shops at the airport.

Often, this travel means getting up before 5 AM to catch planes or trains, attending day long client meetings followed by the inevitable client dinners, and then playing catch up with email in the hotel room until after midnight. Then, there are those pesky flight connections. Finally, Buddy and I’s set of recent business trips have not even coincided, so we have been a bit of ships passing in the night.

Don’t get me wrong, we are enjoying the work. I just don’t want to leave the false impression that our travel of late has been that exciting. Apart from the language differences and better duty-free options, it could easily be D/FW airport.

Still, I can get onboard (no pun intended) with the accumulation of frequent flyer miles and hotel frequent stay points….