Symposium Stresses and Airport Antics

The interview process at the Symposium was quite a unique experience. Let's just say it's the closest thing to speed-dating that one could experience except without the possibility of dinner and a movie.
ITMI's version of connecting tour directors with tour companies is called Marketplace. There were about 40 tour operators arranged in market-style in a big conference room at the hotel. The process began with "Open Marketplace" which lasted for 25 minutes. When the announcement was made that the marketplace was open, we had the opportunity to deliver our resume and introduce ourselves to as many companies as we could, we were allowed to spend no more than 30 seconds with any one company's representative. I managed to talk with about 5 companies.
After "Open Marketplace" was the time to have more extensive interviews with companies we had chosen...by more extensive I mean 8-minute interviews! When the interview number was announced we had to go into the room, find the company we were scheduled with, talk to the representative for 6 minutes, hear a 2 minute warning bell and complete the interview in a total of 8 minutes! This is where I hope I made a good enough impression with someone for them to remember me among the 250 other interviewees and decide to hire me instead of them! WOW!
The Symposium provided many opportunities for networking, socializing, learning and discussing relevant topics. There were several meals included and a closing night bar-b-q at a ranch nearby. All-in-all a great experience....hope it works!
On the last day we took a tour of Austin, Texas after which we were deposited at the airport.
None of this was more stressful than traveling home from Austin. For scheduling reasons I will not go into here I was scheduled to fly from Austin to Orlando on jetBlue and from Orlando to Islip on Southwest. This normally wouldn't be a problem but for the fact that there was only a little over an hour between landing in Orlando on jetBlue and taking off on Southwest. This necessitated me to get off the plane, go down the hallway, get on the shuttle, go to the terminal, walk thru about 3 hallways, down the escalator, wait at the luggage carousel, claim my 59 lb bag, load on top of it my 12 lb bag, my laptop case and my camera, go thru the terminal, up the elevator, thru more of the terminal, check my 59 lb bag at Southwest, go thru security, take off my shoes, take my laptop out of the bag, collect my stuff, go thru the terminal onto the shuttle, thru the terminal, go to the ladies room, find the gate and board my plane...I did this all in 45 minutes and had 15 minutes to spare! The other option was to sleep in the airport and take an early flight the next morning. Holy Crap!

Back in The Saddle

Well day 2 at ITMI Symposium 2009 is over and as you may have guessed it has turned out to be just as jam packed with activities and networking opportunities as was the ITMI training course in San Francisco. Evidence of this is the fact that this is the first opportunity I have had to post here. Yesterday we left the hotel at 8:30 AM for an 9.5 hour tour of San Marcos and San Antonio. We "remembered the Alamo", visited the San Antonio Botanical Garden http://www.sabot.org/, the Witte Museum of Art http://www.wittemuseum.org/, the McNay Art Museum http://www.mcnayart.org/?act=libr as well as the Buckhorn Saloon & Museum http://www.buckhornmuseum.com/ which displayed huge assortment of, you guessed it, buckhorns. Also on display were mounted heads of all sorts of animals...even if this is not your idea of a worthwhile "hobby" it is certainly a representation of a time in history which is factual and interesting.
We finished the day at the San Antonio Market Square which satisfied anyone's shopping issues and provided some wonderful " local color." After the tour bus deposited us back at the hotel a few of my August classmates and I went back to San Antonio for a stroll along the Riverwalk http://www.thesanantonioriverwalk.com/ which is sort of a little bit of Venice in Texas and provided us a dinner of the most delicious steak I have ever had. Texas Beef...Yeee Hawww!
Today was a full day of speakers and networking oportunities and now we are on our way to the Welcome Party in the Spring Lake Ballroom at the San Marcos Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center http://tinyurl.com/59o4ks.
Tomorrow...more speakers, more networking, more research, and more exhaustion.

Symposium in San Marcos, Texas

I'm on my way to Texas for the annual ITMI Tour Director/Tour Operator Symposium. There will be many informational and networking events to attend as well as two tours of the area. One is of San Marcos and San Antonio. And the other is a tour of Austin.
I'll be there from Jan 24th thru the 29th.
Check back for details.

Relentless Rain

The second day of the second trip to Lancaster PA involved sloshing thru relentless rain to the Kitchen Kettle Village http://www.kitchenkettle.com/, a charming village of boutique shops my favorite of which was the Jam and Relish Kitchen where one could spend a respite from the relentless rain tasting an amazing assortment of relishes, jams, jellies, dips, mustards, and salsas. We went sloshing thru the relentless rain to the "Miracle of Christmas" performance at the Sight and Sound Theatre, http://www.sight-sound.com/WebSiteSS/ after which we boarded the bus and drove thru the relentless rain back to Long Island.
In spite of two days of relentless rain, everyone had a good time on the trip because that's what they wanted to do. They were a very sweet group of cheerful seniors who were happy to be traveling thru the relentless rain to have some fun with friends.
Did I mention the relentless rain? Holy Crap!

Filling in the Details, Part 2

I'm back in Lancaster, PA on the identical trip that we did last week but with a different group. So I'm going to tell you about day two of the first trip on day one of the second trip and then I will tell you about day two of the second trip on another day to be determined.

After a full breakfast buffet at the Country Inn Hotel we took a tour of the Kreider Dairy Farm http://www.kreiderfarms.com/. This was an interesting and smelly tour of the outdoor facilities of the farm as well as the "milking house carousel" where we saw the milking process in action. The cows are "steered" onto a carousel and as they go around it, the workers in their turn clean the udders, attach the milking apparatus, extract the milk and then the cow is "backed out" of the carousel. They explained how, since cows don't naturally like to back up, they have to be taught to perform this step in the process. This was done by spraying water in their faces at the end of the circuit so that the cow would back up to escape the annoyance. They said it only takes a couple of sprays for the cows to learn to back up. Pretty interesting but as I said...smelly.

It was so smelly that I had a few ladies in my group who went into the milking facility and made an immediate U-turn because they couldn't take the odor. They didn't even have to be sprayed in the face...they just turned tail and got out!

After the farm tour we went to the Sight and Sound Theatre and saw "The Miracle of Christmas" http://www.sight-sound.com/WebSiteSS/ which was an elaborately produced dramatization of the birth of Jesus. The production was lavish--the costumes, effects, staging, and scenic designs were stunning.

After the show we boarded the bus and head for home but made a dinner stop at Cracker Barrel in Downingtown, PA.

Filling in the Details

My group is 42 people from Brooklyn and Staten Island.

We got an early start and made it to the Rockvale Square Outlets http://www.rockvalesquareoutlets.com/ in Lancaster for some Christmas Shopping and Lunch. Then we went a short distance to the American Music Theatre for their 2008 Christmas Show which was a teriffic musical variety show with beautiful scenery, great costumes and excellent performances by a Broadway-caliber cast.

If you are ever in Lancaster check out this theatre, or even make a trip to Lancaster specifically for a show at this Theatre. Upcoming performances include Billy Ray Cyrus, Kenny Rogers, Lyle Lovett, The Neville Brothers with Dr. John, American Idol Pop Tour, George Jones, The Doobie Brothers, Peter, Paul and Mary, Jewell, and also from Broadway...Movin' Out, Stomp, and Cats.

Check the website http://www.americanmusictheatre.com/

After the show we checked into our hotel and went to dinner, family style, at the Good and Plenty Restaurant http://www.goodnplenty.com/. Yummy

Lancaster, PA

Tomorrow I am off to Lancaster, PA with a group for Rendezvous Travel http://www.rendezvous.travel/
We will be visiting the Rockvale Outlets, see two Christmas shows, tour a dairy farm and visit the Kitchen Kettle Village.
I will fill in the details tomorrow night.

Changing of the Guard

Our sobering visit to Arlington National Cemetery http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/ included the opportunity to witness the formal ceremony of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/tombofun.htm. The staggering number of gravesites of US military personnel and their families defies description.

The understated memorial at JFK's gravesite with it's eternal flame faces an impressive view of Washington DC across the Potomac River.

Lunch in Chinatown at Tony Cheng's Mongolian Restaurant was yummy.

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/washingtondc/D53628.html

We also went to the Newseum, a brand new museum of journalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newseum. It's a huge facility on Pennsylvania Ave. that provides an interactive experience of exploring media coverage of major events in world history. The $18.00 entrance fee seemed exorbitant in light of the fact that everything there is available on the internet if one is inclined to look for it. We were shown the door at the 5:00 closing time and found our way to the Metro for our final trip back to the Moose Lodge in College Park.

I am heading for BWI to return to LI and Peter is heading south, then for points west.

Before I come to Washington DC again I will buy new shoes.

Fillet of Fish

It rained hard all day so we tried to stay indoors as much as possible. We went into the National Museum of American History http://tinyurl.com/6eb4t7. We managed to spend 5 hours in this is newly-renovated-and-reopened-in-November museum. It is a 4-floor facility exhibiting the history of America's politics, culture and industrialization. Exhibits included the original Star-Spangled Banner, the Model-T Ford, Popular American Television Prgrams, American Presidents, Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet, steam engines, electricity, Julia Child's Kitchen (see Peter trying to get in), and even Kermit the Frog and Dorothy's Ruby Slippers! We didn't even see everything but we wanted to see the National Aquarium so we splashed thru the rain and the puddles to the Commerce Department Building which houses the Aquarium http://tinyurl.com/63d4mn in its basement. We never saw a single fish because while we were going thru the security checkpoint Peter was denied entrance because he carries a 3" pocket knife. He was very annoyed because this has never been a problem at any of the other buildings we entered. Peter said "I guess they are afraid I am going to fillet a fish!"

We decided to go to the top of the Washington Monument instead. They either didn't notice his pocket knife or they didn't have any fish to fillet because we got in without a problem.

There are some amazing views from the top of the monument, the rain hampered our experience a little, but it was still worth the 70 second elevator ride.

Finally we took the metro back to Union Station for dinner at the Center Cafe http://tinyurl.com/6jjkgn/.

Back on the metro to College Park where Kingsley was waiting for us. We are truly exhausted, crocks not withSTANDing. I don't know what shoes to wear tomorrow.

Kingsley promises to be here at 10 am for our final day in DC. Holy Crap.

Comfortable Shoes...

...well, at least I thought they were comfortable when I walked the length of the coach before we left for DC on Saturday. And they were comfortable while we were at Union Station for breakfast at the Station Grill http://www.thestationgrill.com/. The "eggs florentine" were to die for. They were comfortable as we walked to the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/index.html... the Jefferson building of the library is the most spectacular and beautiful building in Washington, and that is even before you consider the more than 17 million books to read there. (I recommended that you kick off your shoes, no matter how comfortable they are, and get an early start and make a large pot of coffee before you start reading.)

My shoes were even comfortable when I called my ITMI friend Mike and arranged to meet him all the way accross town at Dupont Circle for lunch. We took the metro there and even managed to transfer from one metro line to the other to get there, while my shoes were still bearable but getting pinchy. It was great to see Mike and hear about his adventures. Mike is a DC Guide so he was able to direct us to the Lincoln Memorial via the metro for most of the way and then via my increasingly uncomfortable shoes the rest of the way.

The Lincoln Memorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Memorial at night is an incredible sight as is the Washington Monument http://tinyurl/62hthx

Today I'm wearing fur-lined crocks!!

We Have Graduated from Walmart

On this trip to Washington DC we have secured even more deluxe accomodations than Walmart parking lots. We will be spending the next four nights, no charge, in the Moose Lodge Parking Lot in College Park Maryland. We have been invited by the Moose members to partake in their "Beef & Brew" extravaganza. All the beef you can eat and all the brew you can drink. We politely declined in the interests of not having a red-meat induced stroke or a beer induced coma.

We called a taxi company to deliver us to the metro station so we could take the subway into DC. Our driver, Kingsley, has offered his services to us for the duration of our visit. He will pick us up at the Moose Lodge and take us to the metro station whenever we call him, no matter what time and when we call him in the evening he will pick us up at the Metro station and bring us back to the Moose parking lot for the modest fee of $20 a day.

Since we got a late start today we went into the city to reconnoiter the area and decide how we will tackle the next four days to maximize our site-seeing experience and find the most appealing restaurants to keep up our strength.

We walked on the mall from the Smithsonian Castle to the WWII Memorial, and took a quick spin around the dinosaur room of the American Museum of Natural History.

The picture included here is part of the WWII Memorial. The Freedom Wall is 4,000 gold stars on a wall reflected in a pool. The stars represent the 400,000 Americans who gave their lives during that war. Very impressive at night.

Heading for DC

I am "on the move" again with Peter in the motor home, this time heading for Washington DC. We are going to see as many sites as we can between Friday 11/29 and Tuesday 12/2. I will be flying home from DC on Tuesday so I can go on an overnight tour to Lancaster, PA with a group for Rendezvous Travel http://rendezvous.travel/ on December 3-4. More about that next week. For this weekend thru Tuesday check back here for more about our DC adventure.
Peter will be heading for Florida on Tuesday and then continuing on to his cross-country odyssey which will take him to Texas, California, Denver, Washington State, and Cabo San Lucas. Hopefully he will blog from his own site during that trip http://scatpayeverywhere.blogspot.com/

Judy & Liza

Yesterday I went to an event sponsored by Rendezvous Travel, http://www.rendezvous.travel/, at the Westbury Music Fair.

"The Judy & Liza Show" starred Suzanne Goulet as Liza Minelli and Julie Sheppard as Judy Garland. They performed many unforgettable songs by these two show business legends. Their characterizations were mostly very good and sometimes quite moving. Judy is one of my favorite performers and so one has a high hill to climb to impersonate her and Julie Sheppard did an excellent job. Liza is also an amazing performer (in her day) and Suzanne certainly captured her essence.


The trip took more than 35 busloads of approximately 1800 people to the show and to either lunch at the Swan Club, http://www.swanclub.com/about.htm or the Crest Hollow Country Club http://www.cresthollow.com/ or dinner at the Swan Club. It was a hugely complicated process to orchestrate but this is what Rendezvous Travel specializes in.


My duties involved shuffling people on and off buses, seating them in the theater and directing them to their tables at lunch/dinner not to mention enjoying the show.

The Museum of the City of New York

Today I went on another day trip to Manhattan with a group of 48 from the Bronx. We then went to lunch at The Sea Shore Restaurant in City Island.
Who even knew there was a museum called the "Museum of The City of New York?" Not me.

Its a really nice little museum that on Fifth Ave and 103rd St. that has exhibits about the history and culture of NY City. http://www.mcny.org/

Since this group was a church affiliated senior group, the exhibit we went to see was called "Catholics in NY," but there are several other exhibits that were even more appealing to me if not to these very Catholic ladies.

There is an exhibit about shows on Broadway, the history of NY Firefighters, and a few others, but the one that was a favorite was the toy and dollhouse exhibit. There were lots of antique toys and amazing dollhouses. Almost everyone saw a toy displayed that she had as a child, including me!

My San Francisco/ITMI Album

I finally finished putting my San Francisco/ITMI photos into an album presentation.
To view it, go here http://www.mypublisher.com/
Click in the upper right on "mybookshelf"
The order # is M826391 The password is 1308096

Go look.

Week Two, Day Seven..the Finish Line in Sight

Last day, we are off to Newport, Rhode Island and then thru Connecticut to JFK. We're not going to the casino this time but instead to the Tanger Outlets in Westbrook CT. It seems the Brits like shopping more than gambling.
Yesterday David (driver) asked me to change the departure time from 9:00 to 8:45 if possible, so I tried to reach as many group members as I could and ask them to come down to board the bus earlier than originally planned, if possible. So David and I went to the bus to get ourselves organized, plan our route, timing, lunchtime, biological reststops, and were about to bring the bus to the hotel entrance to pick up the group when David said, in his thick Puerto Rican accent, "Oh no, I hab to go to my ruum, I hab diareah!" So David goes waddling back to the hotel, he was literally taking baby steps thru the crowd of 50 people who were waiting to board the bus early, and he disappeared into the elevator. Everyone looked at me, understandably confused. So then I had to circulate thru the group and explain why I made them come down earlier than planned but now am making them wait to board the bus LATER than planned. Did I mention before that you can't make this stuff up?
One of my ladies, Constance Cullingford, is a retired history teacher in the UK. Great name for a history teacher, no? So she is obviously extremely interested in all things historical. Here's where serendipity makes an appearance again. She was touring the Mayflower II when she heard someone calling out..."Mrs. Cullingford, is that you...?"
She turned and saw someone she didn't completely recognize but who touched a familiar memory. It was one of her students from about 20 years ago! Amazing!!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Trouble in Paradise...resolved

Everything worked out fine. All the refugees were returned to this hotel for breakfast and they said they were treated very well, had a good dinner and they all got deluxe accomodations in this hotel for the remainder of our stay. Naturally I told them it was all at my insistence that they were compensated just so.
Mr. & Mrs. Roberts said their new room with the bed was more than satisfactory and the the whole episode was well worth the laughs they got out of it. Love them!
Tomorrow we are on to Plymouth, Plimoth Plantation and Hyannis. I can't believe the week is almost over. I have really grown attached to group 2.
I shot photos of each of them in David's (the driver) hat, that he wears when the sun is facing him. Everyone has commented about it so I thought it would be a good theme for the trip.

Trouble in Paradise

So we get to the hotel in Nantasket Beach after dark, but as it turns out that is the least of my worries. I get my stack of envelopes with room keys and begin to distribute to my group on the bus and it turns out that there is a key for a couple, the Lucas's who are not in my group. Not so bad, right?
Well the rest of the problem is that there are 4 couples and a single gent in my group who have no room assignments. The hotel is full so they need to transfer them to another hotel. They promise to have them back here by 7:00 AM for breakfast so we can then go on our guided city tour of Boston. They also promise to buy them dinner and drinks and give them delux rooms with a view tomorrow and Monday nights when they come back here.
So we get that all squared away and pack 9 people and their luggage in a van and send them off to the other hotel and I believe everything is now ok. So I go to my room and then decide to go down to the restaurant to make sure everyone is satisfied with their accomodations and I find Mr. and Mrs. Roberts at the front desk talking to the staff. I ask them what the problem is and they tell me that when they got to their room there was no bed in it! They called down to the front desk and reported the problem so the staff sent a bellman up with a bed and Mrs. Roberts had to supervise the assembly of the bed until the bellman gave up and they went back down to the desk and that's when I came upon the scene. As it turned out there was one room left ( the one that was assigned to a couple who was not in my group) and so the Roberts' are now in the Lucas's room, I don't know where the Lucas's are but they are not in my group so i really don't care about them.
Hopefully I will gather all my chicks tomorrow morning and we will procede to Boston. Who knows what evil lurks there.

A Round of Applause

Whenever we get off the bus I give the group a time that they must return and board the bus for the next leg of our journey. And when they come back I have to count everyone before we can leave. I have started a procedure whereby all of the people on the bus clap when the last person gets on the bus. Then we can begin. If the last person on the bus is late the applause is louder and more vigorous and sometimes is accompanied by verbal outbursts, everyone laughs and the last person on the bus is slightly embarassed, just enough to try to not be the last person on the bus the next time.

So tonight I made a "trophy" which I will have printed tomorrow. The person who gets recognized as the last person on the bus will take posession of the medallion until the next last one earns it.

Group 2 Does NY

So again we surprised them with a whirlwind visit to Manhattan. They took pictures furiously, shopped intensly, and met a horse in the Big Apple. Better than a worm, I guess.
They also saw The Naked Cowboy....I was so proud of my country at that moment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Cowboy

One guy in the group asked me where he could get peanut butter m&m's, he needed to bring them home for a friend. I told him I never knew of them but I was sure he meant Reese's Pieces.
So when I got off the bus I found a Duane Reade Drug store in Times Square, (not hard to do), and bought a bag of Reese's Pieces. When we got back on the bus I gave him the package, and he promptly showed me what he found...a bag of PEANUT BUTTER M&M's! Son-of-a-gun, you really DO learn something new everyday, don't you?!!

We traveled up the thruway to Vermont, and the colors in the Catskills and north were truly spectacular. No idea what Vermont looks like because, needless to say we arrived after dark, because of ridiculous traffic in NY City and beyond.