London, Ghent and Dusseldorf

Hi all,

It has been ages since I have written a blog, and Joel is forever on my back about it, so, finally, here is an update! I have had a busy few weeks with travel. The first week of Nov I spent 5 days in London with work. London is always an amazing city and I was lucky to be staying at Charing Cross, right in the middle of it all. We had some beautiful meals - one was at the first Indian restaurant in London. The decor was amazing, not to mention the food. The highlight of the week was the chance to catch up with my good friend of mine, Pooja, who moved to London a month after Joel and I moved here. We had always said we must have a catch up over this side of the world (she was in London while I was living over here last time), so it was fantastic to actually finally do it!

I have just returned from another trip, this time 3 days away in Ghent (Belgium) and Dusseldorf (Germany). We were on an intelligence gathering mission in advance of a major meeting being held in Ghent next year. So part of our 'brief' was to try out some local restaurants and pubs to find some suitable locations for social activities for the conference. Tough job but someone's got to do it.

This is in Brussels. Amazing - it was built in the 50's, its made of stainless steel. Its used as a restaurant upstairs and there are galleries in the spheres.

Ghent is a beautiful medievil town and has an old castle in the centre, as well as waterways/canals much like Copenhagen or Amsterdam.

Pics of Ghent

I was in Dusseldorf for a meeting with one of our business partners and it took place at Medica, the biggest medical convention/exhibition in the world. There are about 15 massive halls filled with exhibitors. There are tens of thousands of visitors. Amazing. The money that gets spent by the companies on their booths is incredible - two story extravaganzas with catering and meeting rooms, lets just say you could buy a house in Toorak for the price they pay for these displays.

But having said that, I'm really glad to be home. I don't have any more travel planned until Christmas so I'm looking forward to getting ready for Christmas and Sally's visit. She arrives 14th december.

We are all going together with Ryan to Paris for 3 nights starting on boxing day, and then we'll have a week at a ski resort in the French Alps. We will be there over new years eve. We can't wait!! We are also planning a weekend visit to a Laerdal cabin in the mountains with Sal and whichever friends can join us. A really authentic Norwegian experience for Sal.

Hope everyone is well. Today and tomorrow our thoughts are especially with our lovely friends Jules and Matt who are getting married tomorrow. We really miss you guys and would love nothing more than to be there for this amazing occasion. I know that it will be a beautiful day with lots of thought and planning having gone into it, you guys are truly the most wonderful and generous hosts, and this will be an event like no other. Good luck, we send you all our love from Norway.

Cheers,
Emma.