Jan 8
đ5ď¸âŁ. Next up on my look back at the year that wasnât of 2021 is My Top Five Favourite Places. Not quite as limited on exploration as the year before, nevertheless the five were relatively easy to select.
There was nowhere new, but plenty of places revisited, one in particular was long overdue. Here are my 2021 Top Five Favourite Places đ
Please click for moreAt home in Sarasota, Florida this evening after a whirlwind and exhausting eleven day work trip, or as my daughter calls them work vacationâs.
A Five night kick-off in Las Vegas is not to be recommended, although the time there was more dominated (other than work) by sports more-so than gambling. I actually didnât even get to sit at a table to lose any money. One reason I wasnât that bothered was due to mandatory mask wearing at all times within the casinos.
Please click for moreSmoke replaced fog drifting across downtown San Francisco when we drove in from the airport last Wednesday. People talked of ash settling on their clothing as they criss-crossed across diagonal roads in between famed cable cars. In the distance towards the mountains a grey hew hung below the sky.
Despite thinking we could still make a day of it, we decided in the end to switch our Friday Napa Valley plans and instead our group travelled the shorter journey across the East Bay from San Francisco to Livermore Valley, One of the oldest wine regions in California, but untouched by commercialism and usually occupied by the local wine connoisseur and not by bus loads of tourists.
I stared at the Arrivals board at Miami airport today to see which carousel my bag was going to end up at and for the life of me I could not remember where I had just flown in from. It was San Francisco and last week was every part of fun and successful, but the time difference was a killer for me this time as well as carrying around a stinking cold.
Vegas was low key, we could feel the numbness and it was quieter than I remember it from other times. Los Angeles was hot, and hectic. Burbank we saw one of our largest clients and home to the âhappiest place on earth.â The San Francisco days were long and exhausting mostly stuck in a room, and when we went outside it was chilly.Â
I have had a tremendous summer of travel, but my head spins when I think about where I have been and some of the absolute sadness and tragedy that many of these places have had to deal with, and how lucky Iâve been to miss some of these awful events.
I have arrived in Anaheim, California tonight after a long day of travel. I am out on America’s west coast for the week with work and Anaheim, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Francisco and Napa Valley are all stops along the way.
Napa is a great way to finish a trip, but I have an interesting day tomorrow when I spend a day at Disneyland. I can see you rolling your eyes, but hear me out.
Please click for more
The last day of an exhausting, busy but fun week on America’s west coast. The work trip began in Los Angeles on Sunday in 90-degree heat. There were meetings Monday morning downtown, the afternoon seeing a client in Santa Monica and the evening in Newport Beach. It was a long day and sleep-wise one I never recovered from struggling with the time difference, only last night sleeping for more than five hours, our final night, just in time to leave for home. Of course.
Tuesday and Wednesday we were in the great city of San Francisco, comfortably in my Top Five of American cities. Meetings started early were back to back and ended with great dinners and too much to eat and drink. We wrapped up the trip yesterday with a day in Napa Valley, 17 of us travelling out over the Golden Gate Bridge on the Gillig Bus, to St Helena for our first tasting stop, the beers on the bus serving as a base.
Please click for more
Tomorrow a group of us fly out to Los Angeles mirroring a work trip we did last year. The group is slightly different, as is the schedule but the purpose is the same.
We get to LA on Sunday night, hopefully with my luggage unlike last year, then Monday is busy running around downtown, then out to Santa Monica for meetings before driving down to Newport Beach, about 45 miles down the coast from LA. There we’ll have dinner, and will crash before flying early Tuesday to San Francisco.
Please click for more
Admit it, the posts you have been waiting for. Chicago Addick’s Top 5 Favourite’s of the past year.
I am going to begin this year’s Top 5’s with Places. I got to some fascinating spots in 2014 and these were my Top 5 Favourite Places, with one in particular surprising me.
1) Mexico City
Some people were aghast that we’d take ourselves and our daughter to Mexico City, but I am a huge sucker for cities and will give anywhere the benefit of the doubt and sure enough with five centuries of history there were gems and awe-inspiring moments aplenty, none other than the area known as Zocalo (photo), the vibrant heart of the Centro Historical where a compact grid of streets poured fervour and ceremony out of every street corner.
Gritty, overcrowded, smelly, polluted, busy and dangerous are all words associated with Mexico City, but beneath the warnings we saw some terrific architecture, proud monuments, a lot of green and pleasant land and happy people.
Please click for more
Chicago Addick 