Costa Rica (All work no play)

Headed down to San Jose, CRI early yesterday,takes about 6 hrs with the connect time in Houston. It was perfect flying in on a Sunday because the airport was pretty empty, and nothing happens in San Jose on Sunday, so there was no traffic. There were so many people coming to San Jose though, we were on a 777-300! That's the same jet I take when I fly to Dubai, so pretty surprised 1. that the runway in San Jose could handle that big of jet because it's in the mountains, and you literally fly into the valley to the city 2. that San Jose had such a draw. Looking around at customs, the line for Citizens was maybe 10 people, everyone else was foreign. There were many German/Austrian/Swedish people around me. The one couple I talked to said they have a house in Punterenas which is about an hour from San Jose. They fly direct from Vienna to Houston, then Houston to SJO, they were staying for the Christmas/New Years.

This was the cover of the United Magazine for December- what a coincidence! It talked about all the volcanoes, rainforest, wildlife, and how it has a special rating for it's pure beaches. Which if you look at the map- San Jose is smack in the middle of the mountain range in the center of the country- so unfortunately I won't be seeing any of those things in the magazine- at least this time :-) Getting around here is a breeze- all the taxi's are metered, thank goodness, and they are government regulated. Going from the airport to hotel only cost me $8.00 US, so that was a nice surprise. As we were going down the highways and side roads, I noticed there are a lot more BMW's, benz, and new cars on the roads here. Then I started looking at the houses, and was again surprised to see they are huge, and new. I talked with the local manager at the store last night and she said San Jose is a wealthy city by Latin American standards. Agriculture is big $ here because it's coffee and liquor, there are factories, banking, and apparently there is a really nice old town that draws lots of Latin American Tourism as well. When I went to our mall last night, I was delighted to see packed hallways, and people with hands full of shopping bags. Most of the time, you see lots of people in the mall, but 1/100 have a shopping bag, but the people last night were really shopping, a good sign for the mall. Since I had been up since 6am, I planned on just seeing the store, snapping pictures, and going back to the hotel for dinner and chilling out, but I should have known better. The team just didn't have enough leadership to get done what needed to be done, so I had to re-group the team, re-set the direction, and work, work, work! We get our first shipment of product tomorrow, and they were still messing with unpacking props and table materials. I did end up just calling it a night at 8pm, knowing that the next three days are going to be loooong as we try to open as soon as possible to get in on the christmas shopping dollars. We're staying at a Sheraton that just opened up a 2 months ago. Really nice, by far the best Sheraton I've ever seen. Modern, great lounges with Restoration Hardware furniture, fancy light fixtures, and great color scheme. A great value too- only $82.00 a night, and food/beverages are really cheap (either their currency, the Kolon, is low against the dollar, so stuff is just cheap here). Next post will probably the Opening pic with the staff in front of the store (fingers crossed), or it will be my recap as I sit in the airport heading to Panama. I'll be going there the end of the week to help out during Super Saturday this weekend.

Pictures of the lounges' pool table in the lobby (pretty posh for a Sheraton :-), and the views from my room of the area called Escazu.

Casco Viejo, Panama City

So, here are the pictures of the Old Town. I'd say 1/2 the buildings had been refurbished, and the other 1/2 were still far gone. Many of the buildings that have been rehab'd are now government offices and that's probably because they take so much work to fix up. There are a few good places to eat that I've heard of, and if it ever stops raining we'll be heading there for dinner one of these nights. I happened to go on the one morning it didn't rain, so that was very lucky.

I'm Back (on the road!)

So 8 months after I traded my Black Corporate Amex for a comfy desk job in columbus, I'm back on the road! I did get to go back to Dubai in September, and had an amazing time with the teams there! I thought that was going to be my one trip a year, then we decieded; why not open up Panama, Costa Rica, Venezuala, and Heck- with all that let's start opening in South East Asia!! So- when I started to see my calendar fill up with all this new travel to all these new countries- I thought (was asked ;-) to start up the blog again. So: Trip #1 Panama City, Panama!

Did I ever imagine I'd go to Latin America?? No! But after we did a world wind Jet Trip last month to preview all the locations, I figured it was only a matter of time, and here I am! I have to say I never have known anyone to be here, never looked it up on the web, never have seen any TV shows about it- so it is like being in a movie! Like every were I've gone, they have good hotels, malls... and that' pretty much where the similarities end. Strange to me- they use US Dollars as their currency here! For Real! They use US dollars everywhere. Mostly because there is NOTHING American about this place. No one, and I mean 98% of the people only speak spanish. I literally went out to dinner last night and not even one word of english was spoken in the 4 conversations I had with the waiter. What you ask? I speak fluent Spanish?? HA! I wish! I just nodded and said Coke Light, and pointed, and smiled, and Voila1 Dinner was served. I trained the team Thursday, Friday and Saturday last week, so today was my off day. Luckily, Daniel had bought a Panama Travel book, so I brought that with me. I saw the Old Towne (Casco Viejo), so after a little prodding from Daniel I got out of the hotel and went. Why would I think twice? Well, Latin America is rough. Rough. Like Kidnapping, robbery, knife weilding mugging, and taxi cab's take you where you don't want to go and then leave you "Rough". I mean, I survived and traveled all over the Middle East and Eastern Europe without incident, and here, I'm a little on edge. When the local partner here, who has lived here all their life- locks their doors immediately when in the car, and tells me that we can't go to dinner after 8pm because "well just because"- you know it's the wild, wild west. I mean really, this is nothing like you would ever imagine. But I did make it to the Casco Viejo, and got some amazing pictures that I'll show in my next post. Glad to see you! And can't wait to blog some more! I've missed this, and hope you have too! ***Also- I'm on INSTAGRAM! To stay up to date before I post here, follow me: Curator89

Store Manager Goodbye's

Today the store managers from AbuDhabi and Dubai met up with me at PfChangs in Mall of Emirates for lunch. It was so great to see each of them one last time before I head home. I helped open most of their stores, trained their teams, and for a few of the store managers- even trained them almost three years ago when I was onboarding our first group of store managers in Columbus! I recapped my memories of opening up the Saudi Market with the manager from Dubai who went with me as my arabic translator and training partner. Another manager told the story of how I took her and the three other managers to Detroit, MI to train at Somerset mall and we went to the Motor City Casino because they wanted to "see the sights... in Detroit!" lol. That was a blast. We got lots of pictures, and Sherrellea gave a nice speech, then they all went around the table and told me the best memory of me working with them or their team. I was emotional because I really have met so many people, and spent so much time teaching them, and the thing that really got to me was when a few of the managers said "you are the reason I love this brand", or "you're the reason I've become such a good manager"... Those are my new best memories. Funny thing- for this picture I was like "I'll be in the back since I'm so tall" and, as the middle east goes, they were all like "no no no- you sit down in the middle, and then the senior managers sat next to me, or were at the front! It was like "all you minions to the back!" lol. In the front row- left is the training manager Michele, me, Sherrellea (vp ops), Zalfa (Ops Dubai) Shaik (Ops AbuDhabi)

Hello, Goodbye

This is my last weekend in Dubai. Only 5 days remain till I get on the flight home, for good this time. My 2 years has flown by, and I am so glad I kept this blog. Now, I'm not going to sign off yet, so this is not the good bye blog entry, but it's the winding down of this amazing experience. So first off; I got a new job! I'm now going to the Manager of Store Operations for our international division!! This is the role I have dreamed of for years. I'll be in charge of all the store education materials, store meetings, trainings, new franchise on-boardings, then overseeing the store props (plexiglass boxes, hanging decorative elements we change all the time, etc), new store opening kits, any technology updates, scheduling tools, staffing tools, and... alot of other things. But this works out great because I've worked in the US business for years and have great relationships with the US home office teams, I've worked on the ground inside the franchise world, building those relationships, and really seeing what it is like on this side of the world. Now, I get to go back and fix all the issues that we've had on the ground, while connecting them more to the US business. So all in all, I'm thrilled and can not wait to start my next new adventure. And secondly, I didn't know how this last week was going to go. I was thrilled that I got to spend last week in Istanbul seeing the team before I left. Then I came back to Dubai and was excited and got emotional as both the LBI team and the franchise team wanted to throw me going away parties. And then the store managers all wanted to go out with me to have dinner and say goodbye :-) It really showed that I've built a great team, built strong relationships, and best of all, made some great friends. The pictures above are from our Franchise team brunch we did yesterday, and the picture of Sherrellea and I is great. She is the VP of Operations for the big franchise and we've become great co-workers and friends. I'll still be working with her as I'm now Operations from Columbus, and she'll still be here for the middle east. Below are the pictures from our Limited Brands team dinner. We went to my favorite restuarant in the city "Bice Mare" which is right in front of the Dubai fountains. We then went for drinks at my hangout bar called "Neo's", super posh top floor of the Address Hotel downtown Dubai. It was the perfect evening with the team. And they got me the best going away gift; a photo-frame to keep on my desk so that I can always remember the amazing times' I've had over here. They also got me a spa gift certificate for a spa in Columbus- joking that I'll need it since I'll have to start cleaning my own house, and making my own bed again when I get back :-) Pictures of the team, me and Ashley sitting infront of the Burj Khalifa, My card and they got me Magnolia Cupcakes for dessert! And the fountains.

Downtown Cairo

Here are some pictures of the city, mostly from the car as we didn't exactly walk around and explore. There seemed to be a lot of buildings under construction, but the guide said they've been that way for years, and nothing is really legal. A developer will just start building without having any roads or utilities in place, not even sewers, and then once the building is up, they expect the government to come back and make it habitable, but the land lord gets to start renting it- and keep the building, so it's really messed up and is a huge issue in the city. Being that the government is not functioning= they aren't able to fix the buildings= there are hundreds of empty 1/2 finished buildings. Also, the city is in a desert, so sand everywhere. The highways and ring-roads have sand dunes on the sides, and then garbage piles up, and then more sand. In some parts of the highway the off-ramps had an 1-2" of sand which was just like snow- makes it very slippery as you are trying to slow down.

Pyramids in the Daytime

Today was a gorgeous sunny day, and we got to the site before it got too warm which was perfect. As we turned onto the road to get to the site, there were all these guys in the road, blocking up, yelling at us. Ali said it was because they wanted to be our tour-guides. He yelled out his window in Arabic at them, and they got SUPER confrontational, starting kicking the car and banging on the window. It was intense- even with Ali being Egyptian, they still treated him like he was a tourist! We eventually make it up to the site and much to my surprise, again, there was hardly anyone there! We drove right up to the gate, got our tickets, and get this- drove right onto the site! You just drive around the site on the rough run down roads, and drive form Pyramid to Pyramid- even two big tour buses were doing it! If you don't have a car, you can rent a horse, or a camel with a guide. With all the majestic grandeur of the pyramids, you don't really get to "smell" the area. There was horse and camel dung everywhere. I mean everywhere. It was disgusting. I had heard that the picture of the pyramids was always shot from one side as to hide the truth of Cairo being directly behind the other side, and it is true! The one side; blowing sandy desert, the other, a rough looking city skyline. We did end up getting a guide because Ali said he felt really bad for all these guys- they have no work. It was ok, I felt a bit rushed as he was power walking around the sites, then wanting us to get Camels' to the far smallest pyramid- a total add on "he knows a guy who has the best camels..." So we did get them, and I got a complimentary head scarf as they all thought I'd get sunburned. All was going good till we finished and the guide came up and told me "200 Pounds and I'll let you down" (egyptian pounds is the currency). I looked at Ali who told me not to pay. Then the guide stated yelling at him in Arabic and he looked away! LOL- I was like- "Ah, Ali- Can you help here??" And the guy insisted that I needed to pay, "250-300, it was worth it". Looking around, I was like; fine. I gave him the 200pounds, and then he said "no- I told you 300" then Ali did step in and so did the other guide, and finally he brought the camel down. The thing that made me so mad was that I was going to give me 200 pounds just because we did have a good tour- but now, he made it all ugly. Blah. We got back to the car, and headed across town to the new hotel we're staying at now for the work Visits. I have some great photos of the city I'll post later.

Pyramids Light Show

Wow. This was amazing. I asked the front desk if they had any trips going to see the show, and of course they did! So they set me up with their tour guide, and it was only $20 including transportation, and get this- FRONT ROW seat! AH! It was awesome! I ended up going with a young couple from Switzerland who were super nice. The show started at 7pm, and lasted an hour. During the show, they told different parts of the history of the site, the Egyptian rulers, a little about the Rosetta Stone and how it unlocked the language, all while changing colors on the pyramids, and adding cool holographs to illustrate things like the Sphinx. I love this camera I have because it was pitch black and everyone around me was complaining that they couldn't get their pictures to come out, and mine were turning out fine- just a bit blurry on some.

View and Pool

I got some good pool time in today as my "tour guide" Aly isn't able to meet me till tomorrow to see the Pyramids. Gorgeous weather, only in the low 80's, really sunny. As you can see from the pictures- no one at the pool! There aren't very many tourists here as you can imagine with all that is being said on the news, so lucky for me I guess. The hospitality is so great here because tourism is so down- they really do appreciate those who make the journey and stay at their hotel. As you can see from the pics- I am super close to the pyramids site!