UK Trip Part 1: Cambridge

A couple weeks ago, I was sent to our Cambridge, UK office for our annual Worldwide Sales Meeting. This year seemed to be much less chaotic, we all actually got along and no one wanted to kill each other. Amazing. We had a super tight schedule each day, consisting of meetings, dinners and activities. All in all, it was a really fun trip!

Monday: 
Because everyone was coming in a different times, Monday's meeting didn't start until after lunch. We all had the morning free, so one of my coworkers and I decided to walk around and maybe do some shopping. I found a great new jacket and got a new wallet. I sure needed the coat in the cold weather they were having!After our meetings, we all walked down the street from our hotel and had dinner at a nice italian place, followed by drinks at a nearby pub.

 
Tuesday: 
We all headed into the office, about a 45 min drive from our hotel, and had a full day's meeting in a conference room above the only deli/restaurant in the office park. Afterward, we headed back to town and had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Cambridge. It's a Spanish tappas place and their food is SOOOO tasty! It also happened to be the head of European sale's birthday. We surprised her with a little birthday cake. She hated us for a while, but soon got over it! We all walked off our dinner by walking around town a little bit before heading to the hotel bar for some drinks. 

 
Wednesday:
This night consisted of a private tour and dinner of one of the colleges in town: King's College. This is the very same location where they televise the boys choir singing on Christmas morning. It was a night tour and they didn't allow flash, so some of the pictures are a bit blurry and dark. But WOW was this place amazing! The giant wooden screen that separated the building was built by King Henry. You can see all of his wives initials are carved with his along the screen. And in a side chapel, you can see the history of how they decided on the final construction for the roof - which is 4000 tons of weight supported on pillars that only go 4 inches in the ground. And it's been standing for centuries. Also, there's a painting of Jesus and Mary worth billions on display. During Lent, the cabinet is supposed to be closed, but because we were on a private tour after hours, they opened the cabinet so we could see the painting. It was beautiful. After the tour, we went to one of the buildings of King's college and had a private dinner in a beautiful sitting room. It was a 5 course meal and we were all stuffed afterwards. We ended up walking around town, slowly making our way back to the hotel. On the corner of one of the buildings was one of the most interesting clocks I've ever seen. It had a evil looking cricket on top. As the clock turned, the cricket's feet would click to the next spoke. There were three lights: one for the second hand that moved fast around as the cricket moved the wheel, the next light toward the middle was the minute hand and the very center light was the hour hand. We all stared, mesmerized in front of this clock. Very, very cool. 

Thursday:
Since this was the last night that we would all be together, we decided to have a more relaxed night. So, we went bowling! The shoe sizes were a bit tricky to figure out! We broke up into teams and tried to figure out who was good and who sucked at bowling. On my first game, I bowled a zero, a strike, a zero and a strike. Yeah, I'm consistent like that. After a couple of games, we walked next door to a pizza/hamburger joint. After all the rich dinners we've had, it was nice to find a place with salads and basic meals. 

Friday:
Our meetings were back at our hotel and were only until lunch. After that, everyone went their separate ways. I really had a great time bonding with the new European team. I'm supporting them now, so it was really important to me that I got to know them a little bit better. And as always, I love hanging out with the US team too. I can't believe I've been working with them for over 3 years already. Time flies when your having fun! After everyone headed out, I headed back to the office to do some work. The original plan, was that the new marketing girl and I were going to head to London for the weekend before going home. But we had let her go right before the trip, so I was on my own and had an extra hotel room I couldn't cancel. One of my coworkers in the CA office, had recently relocated to our corporate office in Bury, UK. His wife and kids were visiting family so I asked if he wanted to hang out for the weekend. He said sure!So after he got off work, we hopped in the car and drove down to London.......