Day 1

Well, full day, anyway.

I got my wake-up call at 6am and took my time getting ready. I had breakfast in the hotel (very good breakfast - they have eggs and a zillion kinds of bread and croissants and fruit and all kinds of other stuff I didn't even recognize. Also it's free.:) After that I went to my room and grabbed my stuff to head to work.

I got this kinda sucky map from Ariba - it's nobody's fault, the map was just hard to read. So I went to the front desk and asked how I arrive to work using that map, and they pointed me in a direction. I didn't quite understand though so I figured I'd just start walking since I knew the street I was looking for. Unfortunately I went the complete opposite way from where I needed to, so I asked - well, tried to ask - a few people for directions. Here's how a few of them went.

Me: Do you speak English?
20-something guy: A little!
Me: I need to get here (pointing to map). Where is this street? (pointing to street name)
Guy: Ohhhh I do not know! (walks away)

Me: Do you speak English?
Girl: (blank stare, walks away)

Me: Excuse me...
Other girl: No.


So you can see how I was getting nowhere. Finally I went back to the hotel and they gave me a way better map. I managed to get to the office and upon walking in, I saw Tiago's smiling face :) He was on a call, so I hugged Martino, ran over to Rob and hugged the hell out of him, then met Leila and Naima, then went back to Martino's area to meet Raul, and then Tiago got off the phone and we had the biggest hug ever, which made me so happy after such a cold welcome into the city. I can't even describe how happy I was to see some familiar faces.

The first day of work was nice - my team is full of questions, which is totally normal for how new everyone is. I really like the team, they are all incredibly warm and kind. For lunch we went to a very Czech place where the menu was all in Czech. I told the team to just pick for me, and I ended up with some kind of meat over some french fries with some kind of sauce and some vegetables. Very tasty, but very different from the usual sandwich or burrito we eat for lunch in the USA. I'm not sure how anyone goes back to work after a meal like that, I got sooo sleepy.

The afternoon was spent with Jasper (one of the senior managers), who trained me on coaching. I never enjoyed a training so much. He described more of what I'll be doing while I'm here, and also gave me some info about getting around the city.

After all that, I had dinner with Michael La Sala. I thought we'd just go somewhere local to the hotel, but he took me on a tram down to the really old part of the city where I saw the castle from a distance, St. Charles Bridge, and a lot of other historic buildings. It was insanely beautiful - I've never seen anything like this. The city square is incredible, everything is incredible.

We went to dinner at a little Czech place where I had some kind of chicken over potatoes with a white sauce. I'm seeing a very strict pattern of meat and potatoes here. I am craving salad, or anything else with nutritional value. I'll make up for that at breakfast with some fruit, I guess.

We walked a bit more (feeling good after two tall Czech beers each:), then rode the metro (!!!) back to my hotel. At that point we said our despedida, and we'll likely hang out again next week.

My feet are killing me, and I am insanely tired, but today was a good day. A very good day. :)