Meatball madness

The Swedish meatballs on offer in Finnair's Lounge at Stockholm airport are delicious. I'm sitting here enjoying the wonders of wireless internet access while waiting for my flight home. I've been in Sweden since Tuesday evening on business.

This is my second flight to Stockholm this year. I've eaten at the same restaurants and stayed at the same hotel on both trips. I've yet to see anything of the city. As always I promise myself that next time I'll make an effort to get out and see a few sights. This trip I even went as far as to make plans to escape the office early today. These instantly dissolved when my phone started ringing - another mini-crisis needed my attention.

Most of my business trips are like this - an endless array of airports, offices, taxis and hotels. In the last ten years I've flown to Singapore for 22 hours for a meeting that was eventually cancelled, as well as flying to New York for two days of back-to-back meetings. On both occasions I travelled and transited for longer than I worked at my destination. Business travel is rarely as glamorous as people think.

There's more travel on the way for me. I'll be in London next week. Then off to Portugal for a five day conference. Back for a week, then off to New York for five days. Back for Garry's birthday and then finally off to Milan for another two days. I many also need to visit South Africa soon. I think there's a small ozone hole up there with my name on it!