The return of the wandering Journal Blogger

Posted on | February 5, 2007 | Comments Off

Let me give you a word of advice: if you are going to schlep all the way to Europe, make sure you can stay for more than two days.

I’ll start out by saying that I delivered a successful keynote address to the Escala Mikro Congress last week, my audience was touchingly grateful for the chance to get the “American perspective” on microbusinesses, my hosts treated me like a queen and I got to see a part of Spain I’ve always wanted to visit.

The place was as charming as I was expecting it to be, especially once I convinced my hosts that I was less interested in doing touristy things like visiting museums and more interested in leaving the city of Bilbao to see some of the countryside.

My guide, who was a completely gorgeous twenty-something college student named Mikal, treated me to a nice little walk to see a small chapel that is a local landmark. The place does have a name but I don’t remember it off the top of my head. It is perched out on a lump of rock off the coast and was reached by way of a path:

Ah, but you see, perspective is everything. Once I got to the chapel and looked back over the path I had walked, this is what it looked like:

Mikal made sure I got my exercise that day.

Further random observations: in Spain, there are no clocks. I couldn’t find one in the hotel lobby or in the convention center or in the lecture hall in the convention center or in the restaurant where they served me lunch. I did manage to locate a whole two clocks at the airport. Evidently, they have a very different attitude toward time there.

Travel note: the airport in Frankfort is very large and orderly.

Travel note: the airport in Paris is very large.

I’m back and blogging, folks, and will probably bombard you with posts to make up for my silence last week. Happy Monday, all!

[tags]Spain, EU, microbusiness conference[/tags]