There is barely enough time for a breather since I got back into the grind at work about 2 weeks ago, and now I’m off again to yet another exotic location for another work-related conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

I was only informed about this trip just last week and since then, I have been on a mad, mad scramble to get things organised while trying to sort shit out on the work front as I slaved away into the night for several continuous days. It hasn’t been a particularly fun week.

On top of that, we had a birthday party to attend and stuff to prepare for the weekend in lieu of Squirt’s smallish birthday celebration in our home. I wasn’t home for his birthday last year when he turned 2 due to other pressing challenges and commitment and it would not be right if I miss his birthday again this year.  Fortunately, this trip is scheduled after his birthday, although I really had to go on the double to get things sorted out.

Me-time? I had none. I have been an energizer bunny shuttling between crazy work demands, birthday parties, kids’ weekends activities and our usual weekend routine amongst other things. Now that the parties are over, I dread having to get on my ass to pack for this trip. I hate, hate packing. I can’t stand for it. I’d rather be cooking. Or blogging!

It’s great that I would get some alone time when I travel for business, but in the scheme of things,  I’d rather be home and spend time with my kids. As it is, I don’t see very much of them, and because I have been travelling quite a bit this year, almost on a monthly basis and on some months back, two trips in a single month, I would rather not go.

My boss, who was initially supposed to come along, couldn’t get out of another meeting at the same time this conference is happening – a separate meeting which we both had to be in. And because of this last minute notice to travel out, we had to divide and conquer. His visa approval is not so simple given the timeline, and very fortunately for me, I don’t require any visa to travel out. One has gotta love having a Singaporean passport!

I’m travelling solo on a 14+ hour journey to the other side of the globe. Looooooong flight! I’ll only get to Lisbon after midnight and then there’s the trip to the hotel to navigate. That means, I would have to try very hard not to sleep whilst in the air to sync-up my body clock when I get there, so there’ll be plenty of time for me to wind down: read, watch movies and perhaps, get some inspiration to write up a few posts.

And then, there would be some serious, brain-wrecking hard work being cooped-up in the hotel’s conference room while being induced on a food coma for 2 straight days. The agenda’s pretty tight and heavy. Icing on the cake: Unlike other corporate conferences I have been to, with this one, I don’t know a single person in that room! Great.

Hopefully though, I’ll get to see a little bit of Lisbon. I hear that the Portuguese Kitchen has got some awesome food, and I think I am more excited about that!

Till then. Wish me luck. See you in Lisbon!