Madrid and Paris

Hey there! Jason here.

I'm in Paris, France at the moment and things are going well. (Except for sleeping, of course.)

I arrived in Madrid on Tuesday morning and successfully got myself and the rental car to the Hotel and IBM office. It's been great meeting and working with my new manager and colleage, Douglas - who is a Scot. Everyone is super helpful here for newcomers like me. The highlight is that I brought them Dallas Cowboys shirts and they'd honestly never heard of the team. Perhaps it'll soon be a rag for polishing the car??? who knows...

I met everyone in the HQ office early in the week (tues/wed) and then my manager and I flew to Paris. We arrived to the hotel at 10pm last night, but we still went out for a 2 hour 'driving tour' of the city. It was great fun. Becca and I were here in 1999 and many things were familiar. The funny thing is that when I would recognize something or mention that I saw this or that in 1999, Eric (my boss) would ignore the comment and explain the site and significance to me as if I had never seen it! :-) He is VERY proud of this city and it shows!

The sleeping is not going well. Don't ask. I'm seeing 2am every night. eeeekkkkkk.

There are many, many challenges in this new job. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. We're off to a solid start...

I wish I had more funny things to share, but it's all a bit boring on this trip. Lots of work. I'm almost completely done with my "old job" work, which is good. We finished the year by slipping many deals into next year... so the new sales manager will have a good first quarter! Even still, I hit my forecast... so that's a positive!

Well... it's 8pm here and I'm beat. However... I've saved a little energy and plan to go find a little dinner on the Champs Elysees!

http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/champselysees.htm

Au revoir,
Jason