London Wednesday 2/6/06

Wednesday 2/8/06

In the office working today, gave a 3 hour presentation for my British colleagues and was well received. Even my co-workers that traveled with me did know I had so much information and had developed so many tools to help me do my job. All impressed. Well enough of the patting myself on the back, I don’t need an injury before we head to Scotland tomorrow.

I’m well acclimated now, even woke up before the alarm this morning for the first time. Feels like I’m on a regular schedule now. We’ve been very well received and very productive since we started work Monday morning. There have been many “ah ha” moments since we’ve been here, on both sides. All I really need to leave here with is a good sense the UK team knows what we do and how we do it so they know they can leverage us for assistance in supporting our stores and field partners. We have also learned a lot about the challenges as well as the opportunities that exist here for us to help out.

Sunday after my last update was pretty tame, avoided most of the post football crowds as they left the pitch and made it to the hotel where I settled for an underwhelming burger and a couple pints of Guinness. Every pub including the one at the hotel over a km from the pitch were packed as there seems to be a bit of bad blood between Chelsea and Liverpool; just glad the locals won so I avoided any difficulties.

We’ve been introduced to a fine deli near the office for lunch each day; expensive but terrific fresh foods as well as gourmet items and fresh fruit from the Mediterranean. Quite a find and although I sometimes wish for a place like his close to the home office, it would be terribly dangerous as I can’t seem to get out of there under 7GBP. That’s indicative of the cost of everything here in London. When we got the bill for ~35 GBP for dinner last night and felt it wasn’t bad, we knew we’d been in London a while already. 35 GBP is ~ $61.16 for a plate of pasta, a steak sandwich w/ chips and bangers & mash. Granted the food was decent but adding only 2 sodas and a beer still would have been a lot less than that in most neighborhood bars at home. It was the least expensive dinner we’ve had since we arrived though. Most have been ~ 45 GBP so it’s a budget buster.

Well, that’s about I for now, I’ll do my best to add some updates soon