Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Conference in Rome, Italy



For the first weekend after I started work my boss recommended that I attend a conference titled "Blood Cancer in the Elderly" in Rome, Italy. I left work on Friday afternoon to catch the train directly from Neuchatel to the Geneva Airport for my Fly Baboo (operated by Alitalia) flight. I arrived an hour and a half early and stepped into the terminal only to discover that my flight had been canceled. I immediately jumped immediately in line at the ticket counter because there was one more flight that night, but after being sent to 3 different desks and wasting an hour standing in various lines, I ended up back at the origial ticket counter speaking to the same man I had seen before. After I explained that I had been there an hour before, and had been told there weren’t any seats left when in fact there were, I think he felt guilty for having sent me all around the airport. He did insist on his story that although one system showed seats still left it probably only meant that the airline was purposely overselling the flight, however he offered to put me on standby for the flight, which was currently showing as oversold by 9 seats.

So with a wispy voucher from him I had to join the real check in counter, which luckily wasn’t too packed, got a boarding pass with no seat assignment, and ran to join the security queue because by this point the flight was leaving in less than an hour. Since it was a Friday night in Geneva and all the businesspeople who come in for the week were going home for the weekend, the security line was 200 peple long. It took 30 minutes just to get through it, another 10 mintues to get down to the gate, and by the time I got there almost all the passengers were already on board. I said hello to two other standby travelers I’d made friends with, who had been behind me in the line at the checkin counter, and informed the gate agent that I was waiting for standby. She immediately asked for my passport, flipped through a stack of boarding passes she had behind the counter, typed a few things into her computer, and handed me back a ticket for 25B. After I jumped for joy and ran onto the plane I realized that 25B was the middle seat in the very last row of the plane, and that I had most likely gotten the very last seat available on that flight.

It was my first time on an Alitalia flight, which is the Italian national airline, and apparently the pilots fly the same way the drivers drive, meaning aggressively and very fast. He rounded the curve to the takeoff runway and without pausing gunned the engines straight into the takeoff. The flight itself was nothing out of the ordinary, but on the landing we bounced once before settling onto the ground and slowed down, but never achieved standard taxi speed. As we turned off the runway I was surprised to find myself thrown left into the person next to me as the centrifical force took effect. As I peered out the window I realized that we were practically racing across the tarmac as if the pilot couldn't wait to get us to the gate, and I was positive I'd never traveled that fast in a taxiing airplane before.
 
There was a shuttle service waiting to get me at the airport and I arrived at the hotel just after 9:00. The hotel was 8 miles from the center of Rome (one of those huge conference center hotels), so I had dinner with coworkers before heading up to bed around midnight, exhausted.

The conference was called Blood Cancer in the Elderly, organized by eCancermedicalscience and partially sponsored by my company. There were 1000 participants, of which 75% were hematologists and the rest were made up of nurses, physician’s assistants, and sponsoring companies.  I struggled to understand the detailed scientific terminology and to understand the significance of various test results they had found in their research, but I assumed that eventually it would all make sense.

On Saturday evening after the presentations ended a few coworkers and I managed to sneak into Rome city center for a couple of hours before the fancy organized dinner that night. We did a "walk and snap" tour of the city in the cool evening spring air, and I realized how enchanting Rome really is. The dinner was impressive, a 4 course sit-down meal held under huge clear tents, with good wine and good food (for 1000 people!).

On Sunday there were more presentations, but I had to leave early in the afternoon to allow enough time to get to the airport. Although it was a short trip and quite a whirlwind, I was glad my boss had suggested I go, because I learned a lot, got to meet a lot of people, and got to know my coworkers better.













Sunday, March 13, 2011

Waiting for the Work Visa in Oklahoma


The day after I arrived in Oklahoma I mailed off my visa application to the closest consulate, in Atlanta, Georgia, which had jurisdiction over my state. Then I waited. I spent the first few days getting my furniture organized to move. but after that was done I had to find things to keep me busy. I read more books in 3 weeks than I had in the last year, imported dozens of old CDs into ITunes, started on Rosetta Stone German lessons, and even followed my hometown newspaper, where football rules supreme. I made sure to fill up on my favorite foods that I can't get in Switzerland, like bagels, cheddar cheese, and a decent juicy hamburger or steak. Spring came while I was there, and the weather was fantastic after a cold fall and winter in Switzerland. I could run around in skirts and short sleeves, and soak up some much missed sunshine.

After 2 weeks I emailed the consulate to inquire if they had everything they needed, and a few hours later received a phone call from an actual person at the consulate who was working on my application. He told me they had mailed the necessary documents to the local Swiss authorities, and only needed that local department to click "ok" in their online system for the whole thing to be finished. After asking Celgene to ask the local office if they had everything they needed to click "ok", the local office said they hadn't yet received the mailed package. However, in very un-Swiss-like form they made an excpetion and approved my visa ahead of time, without the package. (They must like Celgene a lot.) The consulate put my passport in overnight mail the same day.

On a red letter Wednesday my passport arrived in a gleaming fedex envelope we had provided to the consulate in advance. The company insisted that I arrive in time to start work Monday morning, so I should just "make my way leisurely back to Switzerland." I called the airline to change my flight again, but nearly every flight out of Oklahoma was completely booked for the 4 days of the weekend. Nothing to Denver, Chicago, new York, or DC. The woman couldn't figure out why they were so full until I offered that it was spring break weekend? The additional cost to actually get a flight that got me back in time was nearly $1500. Since the company was paying my ticket I wasn't sure if this was acceptable or not, but after I asked for their suggestion they told me it was fine because they definitely wanted me there for Monday. So I booked a flight leaving Friday noon that put me in Geneva Saturday morning, and began to pack up my suitcases again.

Football rules everything.


Even the house numbers show football spirit.


The best drive-in in the country.


With $3 burgers. . .


And a $5 full meal.


All the cheddar you could want.


Rows and rows of succelent (cheap!) beef.



That crazy horse statue with the eyes that glow red at night. (why do they need to be RED?)


Spring has arrived!


First daffodils in my backyard.


A sign I passed many times on my evenings jogs. Norman is definitely still a small community, and people try to help each other out.