The week of March 3rd was going to visit the team in Baku where we are implementing a community banking software from IFlex. After speaking with the team there, it made more sense to visit them later in the month, and so changed plans to attend the Eurasia Regional meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia that same week.
Had to scurry around to make flight changes so that I could be in Tbilisi before Tuesday, March 4th. Had limited flight options, I either fly to London and take BMI to Tbilisi but this would require flying out on Saturday, March 1st (yikes!!!), or I fly out on Monday March 3rd to either London or Amsterdam and then make further pit stops using other airlines, some of whom are only airlines in name, before descending on Tbilisi. Yes, you guessed it ... I flew out on Saturday, at least knowing that I will get there.
We hold these quarterly get togethers in each region, with each country rotating as the host each quarter, with Country Directors (in our parlance, otherwise more commonly referred to as CEO's), CFO's and COO's from each of our affiliates (country operations) in the region, along with some folks from Washington. The purpose of these get togethers is to strengthen collaboration, communication, conduct formal Board sessions, to offer workshops on critical topics, and to make branch visits (to view the operations and to meet customers).
We have talked about the using video conferencing as an alternative for some folks to not have to travel. Need to continue to work on this to convince people on its material benefit. However having said this, in some countries getting Internet to work in a hotel is work in itself. So for now I will leave the subject of video conferencing alone ... will focus on more important matters.
Flew out on late, late BA flight on Saturday night ... it pains me to fly out on the weekend especially on a Saturday nite. The flight was uneventful, which was just fine. Could not sleep this time for some reason, so walked a lot and watched a movie, though cannot fathom what I watched - must have been real good.
To beat jet lag ... eat before you board the flight, drink gallons of water, sparkling if you can, and do not eat on the plane ... telling you it works for me. Though you do need an aisle seat to make the regular walk to the bathroom.
Landed in London, and I was in bad shape. Needed a place to keel over as my connecting flight was not till 9:00 at nite. As good as BA is they can be a pain sometimes ... landed in London had to change terminals and even though I paid for the connecting flight thru BA, it was code share with BMI, but they would not let me use their lounge because I do not have a Gold frequent flyer card of theirs. I found the cheapest hotel I could find in close proximity to the airport and was lost for a while lost in my dreams.
Flight to Tbilisi took off on time. Three of us from FINCA were on the flight, including my fearless leader. Landed after 5 hours, early in the morning at 6:00am local time. My first visit to Georgia. I was blown away by the brand spanking new airport terminal. Puts our JFK airport in NYC to shame. My bag came in no time. The driver was waiting for us. It was in the 40F nice and cool, pleasant.
The hotel was located approx 45 mins outside of Tbilisi. The roads were paved, no pot-holes, streets with lights, and yes traffic lights, and clean streets, and one can see the Babushkas (older ladies) street sweeping with what looked like a home-made sweepers made of branches and twigs tied together. The city is split by a river running thru the middle. Infrastructure is well maintained, most probably with foreign aid. On the outskirts the buildings are older, dilapidated, and as one gets closer to the city center the scenary changes to where it almost looks likes Amsterdam or some other European city ... beautiful buildings, russian style architecture, mixed in with modern. As one gets to the outskirts on the other side, now one sees the vestiges of older style homes, rustic in nature, and as one gets further out it becomes more desolate, homes in poor shape.
After approx 45 mins to an hour of driving, after making a turn off the road ... Wowww!!! an oasis ... our hotel nicely nestled next to a lake (frozen at this time). And the temperature chillier than in the city, and raining.
The place looked like a huge big resort, but with no one in site at around 7:00am in the morning. Had to wake up the guard / sentry to open the gate to allow the car into the resort. not a soul in sight, other than a few dogs.
Nice rooms. Dumped my one bag and my computer bag in the room and made my way for breakfast. I was hungry, could wait to shoer and freshen up but not for breakfast.
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