Rome, the Vatican and the CTO

I headed to Rome directly from Madrid. I travelled there with our global CTO (and his wife) who had flown in from Colorado in the US. He had wanted to spend some time talking through some things before our meeting in Italy, so I managed to convince him to come to Spain a day early. I was also very pleased to be able to introduce him to the team there. I continue to believe that to really learn a language you need to understand the culture of the country…another reason why I was happy to go with them to some bona fide flamenco dancing on the Tuesday evening. It really made me look forward to my week’s Spanish lessons at the end of August – I’m itching to immerse myself in all things red and yellow and to understand the land and the people more (even if I doubt I’ll get much of a flavor of it whilst in Gran Canaria...).  The two day meeting in Rome went well and that plus a fascinating visit of the Vatican archives, a roof top dinner and farewell drink for my now ex-boss, and a well-received wall chart all meant that the week whizzed by and that I was pretty exhausted by the end of it. After 11 months in two new jobs, I was ready for a holiday…