Sept 26 - first travel glitch

My flight from Brazil arrived on time in JFK, but an equipment problem on the Quantas flight to Sydney caused them to cancel that flight. That mucks with my sightseeing plans - I was planning to get to Sydney early Sunday morning, drink lots of coffee and do the hop-on-hop-off bus tour, before catching my flight to Melbourne on Monday afternoon (in time to present Tues). Now, I don't arrive in Sydney until Monday morning, so I'll push my flight to Melbourne up as early as possible.

That gives me a night in New York. I could've stayed with the herd of Quantas refugees at some hotel of their choosing, but instead I rented a car and drove to visit my in-laws Dave & Marge.


As an IBMer I'm a Hertz Gold #1 club member. When I got to the counter, the girl asked, "Is a Mustang OK?" I thought she was joking, but this is the car she put me in:

It made the drive up to Wappingers go a little faster than it might otherwise have.

Dave & Marge and I watched the presidential debate, and heckled the contestants. The next morning Dave and I futzed about on his new PC a bit, before I headed back down to the airport to try to get to Australia.

Sept 25 - Sao Paulo

On Wed morning the taxi service picked me up at 5:45am to bring me to the airport. I landed in Brazil just around 11:00 and got checked into the hotel. I worked all day, studying and making slight changes to the presentation, to iron out the rough spots in my performance from Buenos Aires. So, the only sights I saw in Sao Paulo were what I saw from the taxis to and from the airport, and what I could see from my hotel room. Luckily I was in a room facing a Sao Paulo landmark, the Obelisk of Sao Paulo, commemorating the revolution in the early 1900s.



From what I've heard, Sao Paulo is a dangerous city. I was told to take a taxi from the hotel to the IBM building just 2 blocks away, for security reasons - you don't want to be seen walking any distance with a laptop bag over your shoulder, lest you get robbed of it... IBM has a number of taxis inside it's security gates at the end of the day, to take visitors to their destinations. I wish I had taken pictures from the taxi. From what I saw of the city, it is easy to tell that the Brazilians love color. All the houses and businesses were painted outrageously bright green, red, orange, blue, yellow, pink, gold... Truly the most colorful city I've ever seen.

Sept 24 - Buenos Aires

My flight into Buenos Aires went smoothly. The business class seat reclined almost completely flat, and I got a good night's rest. The taxi service was waiting for me when I cleared customs, and he got me to the hotel before lunch time. The room at the Sheraton Libertador was nice. There was a little device right next to the door that you had to put your room key into (and leave it in) in order to activate the room lights, which was a great way to avoid losing my key!

I booked an afternoon bus tour of Buenos Aires, and saw all the sights. The attached photo is of the giant flower statue. The petals close every night and reopen in the morning.



I also saw the Obelisk on Ave 9 de Julio (the widest street in the world), the Governor's House:



(It is painted red because that is the color of the political party who won the election) and a bunch of other sights. That night I ate at a traditional Argentinian steak house, La Chacra. GREAT steak!

I pitched for the first time the next day. Look at the IBM building:



It is smaller at the base than the perimeter above. It made me nervous just being in it!

The presentation went pretty well, although I got a bit nervous about finishing on time, and ended up rushing through parts. I'm afraid I spoke too quickly, so I'll watch out for that in Brazil. For dinner I had a pizza and beer at a little restaurant in Puerto Madero, near the Puente de la Mujer (Woman's Point) pedestrian bridge.



This is where the TV series "The Mole" had its final episode. The first person to reach this point got to read the mole's dossier and eventually won the game.

Afterwards, I bought a souvenir from one of the vendors on Florida street, a pedestrian mall.

Buenos Aires certainly was a great way to start this trip!

Sept 19 - Prepping personal stuff

I've packed my MP3 player and noise-cancelling headphones, and moved lots of personal photos and MP3s onto the laptop so I can finally spend time organizing it - creating playlists and photo shows etc.

I still need to go buy a 2nd battery for our camera, and figure out a strategy for packing and carrying around the camcorder. Plenty more media to organize!

I've signed up for and tested out Skype, and I've also upgraded the AIM on our home computer so it supports voice chat with my laptop. Of course I use Sametime voice chat and ITN too. It feels good to have plenty of options! I have my bluetooth headset connected to the PC. This will be my main communications device for the next month.

Sept 10, 2008 - Planning

Pre-travel planning is proceeding nicely.

Immunizations: I went to my doctor earlier this summer, he gave me a TDAP (Tetanus, Diptheria, Pertussus) and TWINRIX (Hepatitus A & B) shots, but sent me to a travel nurse at a company called Concentra for the more obscure ones. There I got shots for Polio and Yellow Fever, and I got the four-pill oral vaccine for Typhoid. The shots gave me a slight fever and upset stomach all weekend... Thanks to Janice for pulling me through that, by going to the grocery and buying me the wonder drug Pepto Bismol !!!

Visas: I need visas for Australia, Brazil, and China.

The Australian visa took a little work. I had to fill out a questionnaire, then I was granted an exception so I could apply for an online visa (Electronic Travel Authorization, or ETA), which the travel agent took care of for me.

Brazil is harder. I needed an invitation letter, and a notarized cover letter on IBM letterhead (original). I mailed that with my passport and proof of travel arrangements (my itinerary) to a company named CIBT, who will do the leg work of going to the Brazillian Consulate to try to convince them to stamp my passport. The process takes about a week.

China is even harder. Similar requirements as Brazil, but the invitation letter is granted by IBM China, and they need to mail me an original of that, from China, to include in my visa request package. I'm still waiting on that invitation letter, and I'm flying out in 11 days! Hopefully I'll get it tomorrow or Friday, and I'll be able to forward it to CIBT. Once they have that, and they're done with Brazil, they'll do the leg work for China. Hopefully they'll get all that done before they're forced to send my passport back to me (next Thur).