Keeping Up With The Kerns: Packing, Paris, Packing, Puerto Rico

I do a good bit of traveling for my job. Which means a lot of packing, and the only thing I hate more than packing is unpacking. Packing for work trips is never fun, especially for girls, because it's basically double what you would pack to go on vacation etc. You have to have all of your work clothes, your street clothes, clothes in case its cold, clothes in case it is hot, work clothes for evening events...(you get the picture). Lets not even get into shoes, jackets etc. Not to mention these are not quick trips and I hate doing laundry on site so that just means the more you have to bring. Recently I just returned from an 11 day work trip to Paris, I was home for 7 days (3 of which were spent in Charleston) and then I left for another work trip to Puerto Rico for 7 days. So that was a lot of packing and laundry and I am not even home yet!

To give you an idea of what I do, I am a trip planner for a company that creates fun incentive trips for companies top performers. I do all the planning before hand. Which entails everything from booking hotel rooms, event venues, plane tickets on site activities to picking out the centerpieces, linens and themed gifts they recieve in their rooms at night etc. So our company will go on the trips with the clients to make sure everything runs smoothly. I love to travel and although I have only had this job since August 2009 I have already been to alot of great places (Chicago, Bahamas, Paris, Venice, Santa Monica, San Diego and Puerto Rico.) I am very lucky to have such a great job and I really love what I do!

All of that being said it is not all fun and games. The trips are fun, dont get me wrong, but also can be VERY stressful and I'm usually gone for about 8-10 days at a time. We do site inspections about 6-8 months before each program and those are the really fun trips where we pick the hotel, decide what the participants will do at the location, what restaurants they will eat at etc. But usually the actual programs are tough with REALLY long days where you're in an amazing vacation destination but you're trapped in a cold conference room all day. During down time I'm usually so exhausted its hard to find the energy to do anything but sleep, plus jet lag never helps. But we usually do always have a little down time on the programs (See pictures below).

May 13-24th I did a program in Paris for 700 people, of which only 36 people spoke English (fun fun)! Almost the whole group speaks Spanish and Portuguese plus the fact that we were in France you can imagine there was alot of language barriers. So we take a Spanish and Portuguese speaking staff of 10 people with us. They are a really fun group and make our lives alot easier! We stayed at the InterContinental Paris Le Grand, which is a great hotel in an amazing location. You can pretty much walk to everything and it is right beside the Opera House. The program went very well for the most part and I did get to do some fun things while in Paris (Paris City Tour, Boat tour and of course some shopping).

One of my favorite things about this job is the great food we get when we travel. Even if it is just room service at an awesome hotel or running to the nearest sidewalk stand to get a baguette- it is always amazing! The funny thing is, I'm sure if you know me, I am not a foodie AT ALL. You could definitely say I am a picky eater. But I have gotten better and when we are in places like Paris, I make an effort to try new things. One night we ate at a restaurant called La Tour D'Argent in a room overlooking Notre Dame Cathedral. It is one of the best wine restaurants in the world and is most famous for its duck. I have never had duck before but when you are at this restaurant it would be pretty wierd to get anything besides duck. They raise all of the ducks and when you eat one they bring you a post card with the number of the duck you are eating (a little wierd/morbid if you ask me but people love it). The whole presentation of it was really cool and it was really good. I also had the best champagne and red wine I'e ever tasted! We also ate at The Grand Colbert which is the restaurant featured in the movie, Somethings Gotta Give.

After being in Paris for 11 days I was really ready to come home. Unfortunately I was only home for a week before I left again. But I was so glad I was home over Memorial Day weekend. Matt and I were able to go to Charleston for 3 great days. We fit a lot into those 3 days. I got to go to one night of my friends Blakelys Bachelorette Weekend at the Wind Jammer on Isle of Palms. Saturday was speant at Sullivans on the beach and Saturday night was Masrshall and Chrissies wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and so much fun! The reception was at the Old Exchange Building downtown, which was cool. The band was great and we got to see a lot of friends. After we went to Blind Tiger. Sunday repeat beach day on Sullivans with friends and dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Coast. Monday I had time to do a little shopping before driving back, doing laundry and packing for an 8:00 AM flight to Puerto Rico the next day.

I am working in Puerto Rico now. I arrived on 6/1 and I will return tomorrow on 6/8. It is my first time in Puerto Rico. We are had a group of 62 people staying in the Ritz Carlton, San Juan. This group was great and a small English speaking group like this was a breath of fresh air after the group of 700 people. I had a lot more down time on this trip and got to enjoy 2 days at the beach and pool, the hotel casino and Old San Juan.

I went to Old San Juan 3 times and really enjoyed it, it is such a cute area. I had dinner there at the Parrot Club (Puerto Rician cuisine) and Al Dente (Italian)- both very good. I went shopping there- they have so many great little shops and outlet shops. One night I went out with a friend of mine that Carla, that lives in Puerto Rico and one of her friends. I really like going out with locals when I am traveling bc they know all the best places. We started out at the bars in the University area. But the University is actually on strike right now so all the bars shut down at midnight around that area (reminds me of Sat. nights at Clemson). So then we headed to Old San Juan and went to about 4 fun bars there. They then took me to a local Puerto Rician restaurant for late night food (and when i say late night I mean really late- like 5:15 AM). I tried a lot of different food here: fried plantains, octopus, red snapper fish sticks and crab tortados.

Our hotel is very close to the El San Juan Hotel and went over there one night, what an awesome hotel! If I went back I would definitely stay there. The lobby is the coolest lobby I have ever seen. The huge open air lobby has about 6 bars in it with amazing decorations and when you walk in at night you are greated by salsa music and people dancing everywhere, it is so much fun. If you are staying in this hotel you can forget going out to find good nightlife, the party is just downstairs in your lobby!

I'm glad I got to enjoy the city and the beach on this trip. Overall it was a great program with a very fun group but I am definitely ready to come home for a few reasons...

When I return tomorrow I have the rest of the week off but I have a lot to do! I am looking forward to sleeping in at least one day, going to Greenville one day to get some wedding stuff done and Stephanie flys into Charlotte Thursday afternoon and we are doing dinner and going to see SATC 2! Most importantly, this Friday morning we will head to Savannah for my bachelorette weekend and I am soooo excited to see all of my friends for a great/fun/crazy weekend! I will fill you in on this weekend when I return.

Until Next time....