Blog Challenge – Day 21: Where You’ve Traveled?

Oooh, this is going to be quite a long post. 😛 😀

When I was a kid, I have dreamed of travelling the world. There was even a time when I wanted to work abroad but that died quickly when I realized that I cannot stay away for so long. Then I have dreamed of travelling abroad for vacation purposes only. 🙂

When I was a kid, we only had road trips, if you may. We go to the province and spend overnight at the beach on New Year or sometimes, if not overnight, we go on a day trip to the beach during summertime. The farthest that I’ve been to when I was in grade school was 7 hours bus ride away from home.

Fast forward to a lot of years later – the farthest I traveled to from the mountain city was here in the big metro. And when I accepted the job offer of my employer, I began travelling thousands of miles away.

During my first year in my current company, our summer outing was held in Puerto Galera. That was the first time that I left the big island of Luzon. 8 months into my employment, I was sent to Singapore for a 2-day cross training. That was my first plane ride as well and I still remember the phone conversation I had with my Dad before the plane took off.

A few months after that, I was part of the group that was sent to the US for a conference and client visit. We have visited several States, too. What I liked during this travel was that, it was fall. I loved the idea of fall. And getting to experience that was awesome for me. 😀 It was a three-week business trip.

We spent overnight in Los Angeles, CA before flying out to Austin, Texas (where our head offices are) and spent three and a half days for cross training, discussions and last minute preparation for the upcoming conference. (I can’t post the other photos because it has our company logo so this is the best one that I can find from whatever is left in my archives).

After Texas, we flew to Pittsburgh, PA for a meet and greet session with one of our offices there and to set up the conference room in the hotel for the upcoming client conference.

After a tiring week, we flew to Eden Prairie, MN to visit another office there. It was there where we got to experience snowfall although it wasn’t enough to cover the ground. And the snowfall was only for a few minutes before we left for the office.

After two days in MN, 3 of the group went their separate ways for a separate set of clients to visit and another colleague and I went together as well. That was when the “hardcore” travelling came. From Minnesota, we went to New York. Not New York City but Upstate New York. We went to Albany where night falls at around 4 in the afternoon during that time. 😀 We spent the weekend there and met with the client on a Monday afternoon. Early the next day, we took the train going to New York City so we can get a cab going to New Jersey. The office that we visited was only an hour away from the city. We stayed overnight then had to check out very early the next day to catch our flight going to Louisiana.

After Louisiana, we had to catch another flight very early the next day going to Memphis, TN to visit another client. They brought us to Rendezvous for dinner. They are famous for the dry rub ribs and I can say that it was really excellent. 😀

It didn’t end there. LOL! Early the next day (it was already a Friday), we took the plane going back to Texas.This time, we went to Dallas for the last client visit. We spent another night there then took the bus going back to Austin to visit my colleague’s friend (and to get one of his luggage that he left earlier) and to visit the outlet stores for last minute shopping before coming back home.

My travels didn’t end there. But for business related though, it took several years before I was sent elsewhere. The above mentioned travels were way back 2007. Yep, that long ago. 😀

In 2008, our company (we still had a big budget back then) flew us to Boracay for a 3D/2N team building activities. That was my first time to fly domestic.

Then my travels went on hiatus. After 4 years, I went back to the US for a week and a half for some process discussions and a client visit. Then just last year, I was sent to Ede, The Netherlands for a week for process discussions as well and some knowledge transfer. Then a month after that, I went to Palawan for a much needed solo vacation (though I wasn’t really alone that time because I was pregnant with little Z 🙂 ).

So there. I am hoping to visit a few more places in the next few years because I don’t think that I have traveled enough just yet. I just need to make sure I get my passport replaced and get Z’s passport, too (yeah, yeah, I know. I was planning to do this last month but HR still didn’t return Z’s birth certificate because SSS was not responding to them so I had to get him another one). I’ll process Z’s passport once I get mine. 🙂

And I just remembered, I already posted something similar to this previously. You can read all about it here. 😀