Europe on 140 Characters a Day

I don’t have a Twitter account, and I tend to be long-winded when I talk or write, so I haven’t especially longed to tweet (I’d rather fly). But I’m also pretty busy these days, so I’m starting to see the value of that 140 character constraint. Sort of like haiku. So I’ll give it a shot here. MS Word can count my characters and keep me fairly honest. Throw in a few pix - mostly from mediocre BlackBerry camera (see explanation below).

Last week I was in Europe for a customer visit tour with our distributor. IT, FR, FR, UK, FR. Busy schedule but not the craziest ever.

A customer visit in Florence? Yes! Worth an extra day. As lovely as they say. Duomo, Boboli Gardens, and Galileo’s mummified fingers (oy).

Drive from Florence to Nice to Cannes for next customer. Tour of giant spacecraft assembly clean rooms. Sunny drive back to Nice Airport.

Toulouse (too tight?). Nice rosy city. Good weather, good customers, good food. Great food, actually. But no wifi (recurring hotel problem).

Fly Manchester England England, drive to Wales. Shortest UK trip ever (12 hours). Long enough to lose digital camera in rental car. :(

Paris! Business first, including a visit to the Observatoire de Meudon, with great views of Paris. Small hotel in the 6th. Duck dinner.

Late flight Saturday, time to relax and hang out in Jardin du Luxembourg on a gorgeous fall day. Wish I had my real camera. Lunch, fly home.

My new travel companion: an actual Kindle (not app on iPod). New model, small, light, ultra-white display, easy to read. Great buy ($79).