A couple more weeks

Right now, the thing that is consuming my work life is planning for our Fourth of July party. It’s killing me because we’re doing it off-site for the first time ever, and that’s given us some new processes/challenges/steps/whatever word you want to use.

Some of those are easy to change but some are unanticipated. A well-meaning person came up to me a few weeks ago totally freaked out because she hadn’t heard much about planning this year. We’d looped in someone in her department, who I guess filled her in, and she was really concerned that we were behind.

We chatted awhile and I explained that it did seem we were behind, but only on paper. Since the place is somewhere different, we legally could not proceed in most aspects (like the visible ones) until we’d signed the contract, which took awhile because a key person went on leave. Two days after the ink was dry, we had the meeting on site – pretty much as fast as we could get there.

I definitely understood my colleague’s concerns, but to that end, we’d done everything we could have done. I pulled out the timeline the people had done the year before, and honestly, we were pretty much on it.

And that was a couple of weeks ago. Now, it’s set in how soon it is. Someone was talking to me last week and said something about three weeks. I’d been thinking it was four. It’s now a bit more realistic and I’m getting worried myself! Especially since Monday and Tuesday next week are holidays, and it’s a big holiday. A lot of people will be taking off that whole week.

Anyway, I’m totally frustrated with this now. One of my biggest pet peeves is “well, we’ve always done it that way.” Exacerbating that is when you ask WHY it’s been done that way and the answer is “well, we’ve always done it that way.” And then you suggest a new method and point out eight ways why it would be easier/faster/more efficient/cheaper and you get a hostile, “well, we’ve always done it that way.”

I’m trying to consult the experts – people who’ve done this year after year – and am running up against that. One of the issues was check-in. I explained the new location’s setup and asked the expert what the best way would be. She said, “well, last year we had two main entrances” and it was like, well, this year, this is what we have to work with, one main entrance, so can you give me a recommendation? And she replied that it had worked very well through the years with two main entrances.

And this went on. You want to be respectful and say yes, you understand it’s worked like that in the past because it was held in a specific place. But by the decision of someone who’s at a higher pay grade than me, we do not have that option, so it’s in a different place. As a result, it’s going to be different. What can you suggest. And you get the same, “well, we’ve always done it this way, so doing it this way would be best.” AARGH!

We also are constantly waiting on the head office to make decisions. We had planned on sending email notices of the party date on June 2. However, for some reason that didn’t apply with Guangzhou-Beijing, Istanbul isn’t allowed to jump without getting an OK on how high with Ankara. We had the question in to them in time to send the notices on June 2, but as of June 19, we still haven’t received the “how high” permission. We did, on about June 15, finally receive permission to jump, so we did. We’ll add the “how high” later, but at least we’ve been able to give some notice we’re having a party.

So we’re down to very little time left, and I’ve a bad feeling I’m going to be spending lots of time in traffic and out of the office the next few weeks.

But not on Monday and Tuesday. Ramadan will end, and it’s the Little Holiday! (I’ve no idea of what the actually holidays are called, but in Morocco, the two post-Ramadan holidays were called Little Holiday and Big Holiday. That’s how I learned them.)

I get a four-day weekend, and although I am a bit worried about getting all the party planning done, I’m headed out of town1 It’s my only trip out of town in June and I have zero plans to leave in July, so I’m psyched. Today I need to secure a ride to the airport. The flight leaves at 6:55 and that’s before public transportation wakes up.

After that, I don’t leave town until August, when I go to Dublin to visit a friend and run a 10k. I’m registered for that one and a 14k in October, although I think my payment for that didn’t go through.

Lately, I’ve been running outside a bid, as opposed to the treadmill. It sure is a lot hotter, but we have a small group of 3-5 people who have been making an 11.5k run weekly to one of the areas in Istanbul. It’s a nice run along the shore, although to be honest I wind up walking a lot of it. The first time, I made it 3.5k before I had to walk but did pretty well overall. The second time, I thought I was going to die and the third time I think a part of me did die. It was SO hot.

I’m just not a runner. Every day, I hope it’s the day I start to love it. It’s been about three years and I still don’t.

Finally, some daylight

 Last weekend, I met a friend in Helsinki. No particular jonesing for that destination; we just picked a spot where we could both fly nonstop. But it turned out to be a great choice.

Enjoyed the port

As it turned out, Helsinki was hosting some kind of international fair. It was located in the city’s giant botanical garden, which was about half a block from our hotel, and it was about a football field-sized area of booths with handicrafts, food and other stuff from practically everywhere. I took it that most of the people running the booths were first-generation Finns, immigrants or businesspeople with roots from everywhere.

It was fantastic. I held off buying a whole lot, but I did get some toiletries from one of the African-ish booths, and ate Filipino. Finland is WAY more expensive than, for example, the Philippines, and I was horrified at paying 3 Euros for spring rolls, but they were pretty darn good. We mostly wandered around, checking out all the booths. The weather was fantastic and it was just nice to be outside in a crowd of people and not stand out.

Movie theater snack.
Not my movie theater snack.

That’s really something I miss, just being able to disappear in a crowd. Both posts I’ve been in, as well as the other two countries in which I’ve lived, I tend to stand out and draw stares. Istanbul isn’t as bad as China or Morocco, but it’s pretty clear I’m not exactly from around here.

But Finland? I could blend in. I like that. I could also drink water straight out of the tap, and I liked that too. There’s just some stuff that’s underrated.

Like going to movies. I really like movies, but right now, I’m not able to. In Istanbul, we’re still told to stay out of malls, and that’s where the movie theaters are, so by default, I can’t go. And I miss that!

So we got the movie listings in Helsinki and set out to see “Pirates of the Caribbean,” but not in 3D, so the timing was off the first day. Instead, we discovered “Beauty and the Beast” still playing. I really didn’t have any intention of seeing the remake, but when I learned Emma Watson was Belle, I changed my mind. I like her, so, since it was playing, I gave it a shot. It was pretty darn good – much better than I figured – even though the “Be Our Guest” scene went *way, way* too long.

 

But if I ever bring home a man with a bow-tied ponytail, shoot me.

The following day, against Rotten Tomatoes’ better judgment, we went to see “Pirates.” It was pretty bad. Even within the confines of the movie, the opening scene was implausible. Hopefully, with the way it ended, it put itself out of the additional misery of another sequel, but that final, final scene – the one after all the credits – hints are more. It’s just done. There were three “surprises” in the movie, and I nailed each. Either it’s done, or I should be in screenwriting. 

The movie was close to a 7 p.m. start, so we let out after 9:30 p.m. And it was still daylight! Now, I am positive that Finland has horribly cold, dark and long winters, but it was so gorgeous and wonderful to be able to walk around in the light of day at 10 p.m.

Teemu!
Found in the casino.

And it’s on the water, so that made it perfect for me, too. I had great time. It’s a port, and our hotel hosted a couple of cruise ships’ worth of guests, and the daily visitors meant that there were a lot of made-in-Finland booths right on the docks. They were there every morning and rolled everything up early in the afternoon, once the ships came in.

I loved the stuff, except that it had “Finland” etched in everything. Reindeer is big, and they had lots of kitchen stuff made with the antlers, which would have perfectly matched my ulu, except my ulu doesn’t have “Finland” etched on it. (And why would it, as it’s Alaskan.) So I wound up getting a magnet.

I also had been looking for a little coin purse-ish bag that I could take with me on international trips and then stash the money from home in it when I have the local currency in my existing FSU coin purse.  There was a neat one at the international market – made with map material, is there anything more appropriate? – but I’ve been burned by zippers and am kind of careful what I get. At the little port shops, I found one made with a fish-printed material – and it was Velcro. How perfect is that? It’s big enough to hold my Turkish lira and my metro pass.