All this travel is leaving me in the unfortunate position of having a growing pile of blog posts queuing up, which will only get worse as the OpenStack Summit continues this week, so I better get these out! I’m now in Paris for the summit, but last week I was in Florida for MJ’s cousin Stephanie’s wedding.
I arrived on Friday afternoon from Raleigh and MJ picked me up at the airport, getting us to the hotel just in time to get changed for a family and friends gathering the evening before the wedding.
Saturday we were able to enjoy the beach and pools at the hotel with some of MJ’s cousins. The weather was great, even the humidity was quite low, relative to what I tend to expect from Florida.
As the day wound down, we got ready for the wedding!
The ceremony and reception took place at a beautiful country club not far from the hotel. As an attendee, it seemed like everything went very well. The reception was fun, lots of great food, a fun, sparkly signature drink and some stunning centerpieces decorating the dinner tables. I even danced a little.
Unfortunately I picked up a cold somewhere along the way, and spent all of Sunday in bed while MJ spent more time with family and pools. By Monday I was feeling a bit better and was able to see MJ off and get moved over to the beach motel where I spent the rest of the week.
My beach motel wasn’t the greatest place, but it was inexpensive, clean and ultimately quite tolerable. The plan to stay in Florida, in spite of my general “I don’t like Florida” attitude, was to avoid going all the way back to California prior to my Paris trip. And I have to say, with nice October weather and the views at sunset, I think it was the right choice.
My days were spent catching up with work post-conference and prepare for the summit this week. Thankfully it wasn’t very hot out, so I was able to open the windows during the day and let fresh air into my rooms. I also made plans throughout the week to visit with family in the area, managing to meet up with my cousin Shannon and her family, my Aunt Pam, and my Aunt Meg and cousin Melissa throughout the week.
At dinner with Shannon, Rich & Frankie
I also was able to take some long lunch breaks to enjoy a few quick dips in the ocean.
The San Francisco Giants won the World Series while I was in Florida too! I was able to watch the games in my room each night. I was disappointed not to be in town for the win, as the whole city explodes in celebration when there’s a win like this. My week wrapped up on Friday when I checked out of the motel and headed toward the airport for my redeye flight to Paris. And since I was also disappointed to be missing Halloween in San Francisco again, I dressed up for my flight, as Carmen Sandiego.
