A Day With World Leaders

After my "free" day in Lisbon which didn't actually include free time or free meals, Friday was my day to spend with POTUS in travel pool. It was a packed day of meeting after meeting after photo-op after photo-op.

For you longtime followers of this blog (Mom, are you the only one?) you'll remember my previous posts from previous world summits. I've done this plenty of times by now and every time it's my turn, I think three things. #1. I will get to see multiple world leaders and hey, that's pretty cool. #2. I will be walking/running A LOT. And #3. I will get beat up by journalists from all over the world. Those three things are givens!! The other given is that this will be a long post, so stick with me!

So I started out the day having to wake up really early to go over to POTUS's hotel to wait for his arrival. AF1 was flying in overnight and my correspondent was on the flight but as soon as it landed, we needed to swap out. Luckily, the schedule allowed time for him to come to his hotel first. I'm guessing he didn't really need to check-in like the rest of us but he had a little closed press event with embassy workers and I'm guessing wanted to change his clothes. It's not like he couldn't change on AF1 but I digress.

So I made it over to the hotel four hours before he got there and was put in a dark conference room by myself until the rest of the travel pool arrived. That led to one thing. A long nap. I was out. For a couple of those hours. It was great! Anyway, POTUS eventually made his way there and the rest of the travel pool accompanied.

Our first stop of the day was at the Presidential Palace to see President Silva. I know next to nothing about Lisbon but I did learn that they had a huge earthquake around 1750 which leveled the entire city except for the area with the palace. So it was very ornate and beautiful! It was also really big. Not the biggest palace I've been to but it's nice. (I realized that I am totally jaded when I wrote that last sentence!!) I also learned from a WH staffer that the WH is the world's smallest residence for country's leader. Put that piece of trivia in your back pocket!

Anyway, there was a bunch of ceremonial stuff like reviewing the troops, handshakes, signing the guest book, etc. At one point I was trying to snap a picture of POTUS but two people came and stood right in front of me. I then realized it was Hillary Clinton and her Portuguese counterpart!! My view was totally obstructed and then the Sec of State turns to me and asks if she was in my way. I had to be honest and said, "Why yes, yes you are." She then grabs the arm of her counterpart and moves out of my way!!! Woo hoo!!!! I still didn't get a good shot of him signing the guest book but I did feel pretty good knowing Hillary got out of my way!!

We then go in for a photo op with POTUS and POP. Wow, that's good acronym for a world leader! We were in there for approximately one minute and I think I got hit in the head about 40 times.

We then went and waited for POTUS and POP finish their lunch and come out and make statements. They said nice things about each other and their countries but I was somewhat distracted by trying to get my translation thingy working and just the pure beauty of the room! Plus the ceremonial guards had fake blonde ponytails coming out of their hats and I couldn't stop staring to figure them out.

We left there quickly and rushed over to the Prime Minister of Portugal's office. We just had a repeat of all the ceremony stuff (minus the guest book) and we were ushered into a small room where POTUS and PMOP chatted and their staffs sat and watched. This time we had to fight our way into the room because Portuguese officials wouldn't let us in. I have no idea what they were saying to me but I just ignored them and kept pushing my way in.

After that, they finished meeting and then came out to give statements. POTUS's translation thingy wasn't working (none of ours were) and things were crazy in that tiny room. POTUS and PMOP kept talking but so did the Portuguese media. One guy was calling his mom. Another reporter was trying to tape a standup. All while the leaders were speaking. Talk about being distracted. And I got elbowed in the head too many times to count. I think I have bruises from the melee!!

Later in the afternoon, we headed to the NATO site for the summit. I think this might have been my first time doing travel pool for a NATO event but all those world meetings are the same. Lots of meetings (most of which is behind closed doors) and a lot of running and pushing and shoving to get in the rooms. I'm pretty sure I ran (carrying a tripod) at least two miles on slippery cobblestone sidewalks. We finally went in for the opening session with several hundred camera people from around the world. They weren't that nice and they smelled bad. But I didn't get stomped on like and lose my shoe like in the past.

That came later. During the Family Photo. This is never fun. I mean, it's cool to see all the leaders posing for the cameras but to get there, it's survival of the fittest. We all (when I say we all, I'm referring to literally hundreds) ran around the enormous convention center until we got to one point where we all just abruptly stopped. The authorities wanted us to form a single line. I don't know Portuguese but if I did, I would have told them that they were crazy and it would never happen. Our stuff was searched by dogs about three or four times and then all of a sudden everyone started running again. Through one extremely small door. It was a crush of people and I'm surprised there were no fatalities. My cameraguy was bleeding by the end of it but still alive. While I was in the crush of people, the only image that came to my head was like this was like eyedrops. Only one person of the hundreds was going through the door at a time. It was insane.

Once we got in the room, all the leaders came out, chatted with each other, and then posed. And none of them had known what we had to go through to get there.

After I took .5 seconds to appreciate the moment, it was over and we were running to our next event. POTUS was giving a statement. Luckily we weren't fighting with any other journalists to get a good shot because we were the only ones in the room. It was calm and when POTUS came out to talk, I actually could pay attention to what he was saying.

From there, it was just a waiting game. POTUS went to dinner and we went to the international filing center with the hundreds of people we had squeezed through the door with earlier. And we sat and did a little work. And then we waited. And waited. And then we went to the buses to wait some more. Finally after about four hours, POTUS gets in his car and we race back to his hotel. Sixteen hours later, we were finally back at our own hotel and after a midnight dinner, finally got to sleep!!

By and large, it was a good day. Minus a few drops of blood and a few elbows to the head, I realized that once again, I am in such a unique place in life and I am soooo incredibly blessed to have these experiences. I won't be get to be in the same room as world leaders forever so I am appreciating these moments while I have them!

Postcards from Lisboa

I know we all know the name of the city as Lisbon but for some reason, they insist on spelling it Lisboa over here. That's right, I'm spending a few days in Lisbon with POTUS. Before you get too jealous, the only time I really had for sightseeing on this trip was yesterday and I was dealing with plenty of issues for work. By the time they were all resolved, it was dark and rainy.

So my postcards from Lisboa are actually taken by my colleague Todd. If you are somehow living vicariously through me, then you'll have to change your focus because I live vicariously through Todd. He's based in London (and you know how much I love those Brits! :) ) and he gets sent literally around the world to cover all the biggest stories. Now this trip would not qualify as the biggest story but I'm always happy to see him because he is great. And he takes awesome pictures that I can steal and pretend like I saw all of this stuff. Who knows, it might just work out for me to get an hour or two of sight-seeing in before I leave. Just in case, I'll still post Todd's work. Because even if I do get out, his work is MUCH better than any picture I can ever take. It did help that he had the most perfect weather for his adventures in Lisboa.

So last night, I went out to dinner with some colleagues from other networks. We had reservations at 8p at some chic Lisbon place but I couldn't go with them right at 8p because I had a meeting. So after my meeting, I caught a taxi and went to go find them. Well, I don't know Portuguese and my driver knew NO English. I've learned how to get around this problem in other situations but I'm pretty sure that he took me the long way around town to get to this restaurant. That's okay because Lisboa or Lisbon is a pretty city at night. The restaurant was in their Old Town which is much bigger and much older than my Old Town in Alexandria. I'm amazed that I actually found the place because Mr. Cabbie just dropped me off somewhere in the vicinity and I just walked around until I found where I needed to be.

The food was great and we had a wonderful meal at Lisboa a Noite. I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in Lisbon with needing a good Portuguese meal. Two thumbs up! Anyway, after dinner, we left to get back to our hotel and we encountered hundreds and hundreds of young people in the streets. Like a huge, HUGE, HUGE mob. And we all felt incredibly uncool. And old. I'm not sure if this was just a typical Thursday night in Lisbon or if there was something cool going on but it was crazy!! We maneuvered our way through the crowd and made it to the subway and among the group of us, we figured out how to get back to our hotel! It was great fun!

Today, I'm in travel pool which will of course involve a lot of running and pushing and shoving and then waiting. I'm sure I'll share all about my adventures tomorrow! In the meantime, enjoy some postcards from Lisboa. (Courtesy Todd who I am pretending I was with yesterday instead of couped up in my hotel doing work.)

Meet the Parents

Well I guess you should know by now...There's someone who will be making many appearances in the blog. His name is Brian and we've been dating since June. He's a great guy- funny, sweet, smart, cute- the whole nine yards! Maybe he's the reason I've had some slacker tendencies with the blog recently. I've just been a bit busier! :)

I should have mentioned him in earlier posts but I wanted to see if he passed the test. The parents test. The family test. The neighborhood test!

I took Brian home to meet the fam a couple of weeks ago. I admit it... I was a little nervous. I had never done that before! I'm not sure what I was nervous about. Maybe it was that my parents wouldn't like him. That he would think my family is strange and crazy. That my sister's neighbors would scare him away! :) None of those things came even close to happening. (Well I'm not sure about the neighbors part yet! HA!) But my family didn't scare him away!!

It was my mom's and my niece's birthday so Friday we just chilled. We did have to take him to see the Roanoke Star. For those not privileged enough to grow up in Roanoke, let me share. Roanoke is famous for having the largest man-made neon star on a mountain. In the world. Well, I'm not sure if that's been proven yet. I think El Paso might be giving us a run for our money but I'm just choosing to believe that the Roanoke star is still at the top of its class!! I hadn't been up to the star in years and since it was such a clear day, we got to see all of the Roanoke Valley. My parents told Brian all sorts of nuggets of Roanoke history and family history. I guess it wasn't too much for him because I didn't see him even attempting to jump off the mountain!

We spent three days in Roanoke and met a total of more than 75 people. Sunday afternoon was a family birthday party for my mom and Cayton. Then my sister's neighbors came out and held a small press conference with him. Brian was a real trooper!! I even asked them to come up with embarrassing stories about me and they couldn't come up with anything!! NOTHING!! Everyone likes him and he claims to like everyone! Yippee!!

Now that he's met my family, I thought you'd like to meet him too. He'll probably be making appearances in blogposts in the future (unless this blogpost scares him away!)

Last Chance Workout

I think I've mentioned it before, but I love the show "Biggest Loser". While I hope to God I never have to be a contestant on that show, it is really fun to watch! I'm not sure which part I like the most but perhaps it's the weekly scene of the "Last Chance Workout". They have grueling all-day long workouts right before they have to weigh in. They work hard and push themselves harder than they ever have before. And somehow they survive things that they didn't think was possible.

Well, last weekend was the weekend before the election and for the candidates, it was their "Last Chance Workout" for the 2010 Election Cycle. The candidates work their tails off before voters "weigh in" at the polls on Tuesday. (Ok, I realize that comparison might be a wee bit on the cheesy side but please, stick with me!) Since I cover POTUS, I got to go on the road for a couple of days for this last push. I know he wasn't running for any race but as the head of the Democratic party, he had a stake in the way things turned out. (Again, I'm not talking politics here... just stating the facts.)

I was in travel pool on Saturday and my day was waaaay too long to share all the events in detail but I'll make it as concise as possible. In all, we hit 5 states, 3 rallies, 3 flights on Air Force One, 3 helicopter rides, 3 hours of waiting on POTUS, and about 3 miles of running! Here's my day in a nutshell:

1. Meet up with POTUS at Andrews Air Force Base at 8:30a for the flight on Air Force One to Philadelphia. (Meal #1: Turkey and cheese croissant and fruit in a bag for breakfast)

2. Wheels down in Philadelphia and then motorcade to the event site. Run around the building to get in place in time.

3. DNC Rally in a Temple University gym. POTUS speaks for about 7 minutes. Then we run around a lot to get in the motorcade before POTUS leaves.

4. On the way to the airport, POTUS stops at the Famous Fourth Street Deli. I'm not exactly sure what they are famous for but I think it involves cookies and fattening food. We don't eat.

5. Run back to get in the motorcade and drive back to the airport. Take off for the quick flight to New York's JFK Airport. (Meal #2: Meatball sub and a brownie)

6. Wheels down at JFK. Board the helicopters for the trip to Bridgeport, CT.

7. Wheels down in Bridgeport. Saw some beautiful fall foliage along the way. Run to the motorcade to go to DNC Rally #2. Run around the building to get inside and in place in time.

8. DNC Rally #2 ends and we run back around the building to get into the motorcade and drive back to the landing zone for the helicopters.

9. Board the helicopters and ride back from Bridgeport to New York City.

10. Wheels down in NYC and board Air Force One for trip to Chicago. (Meal #3: Pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, salad, and some AWESOME strawberry dessert.)

11. Wheels down in Chicago. Run to board the helicopters. Chopper into the city. (This was AWESOME and I'm bummed I couldn't take pictures of this part!)

12. Run to the motorcade to drive to DNC Rally #3 in a Chicago park. Lots of people, like 20,000. POTUS speaks for a while and then shakes hands for 20 minutes. (Meal #4: Chicago style pizza- for the record I passed on this meal)

13. Run to the motorcade to presumably escort POTUS home.

14. POTUS makes an unannounced stop at his advisor Valerie's house. It's Valerie's mother's birthday. POTUS stays about 20 minutes.

15. POTUS then decides to go out to dinner in downtown Chicago with some of his buddies. The travel pool goes to Maggiano's. (Meal #5: 4 course meal including some ravioli, chicken and mushroom pasta, salad, etc. I did partake in this meal.)

16. Get back in the vans and wait for POTUS to finish eating. We wait approximately 3 hours total. In a van.

17. Finally POTUS is finished with his dessert. Motorcade leaves to take him home. Thankfully, no other stops happen and we get to his house about 1a.

I seriously didn't think I was going to make it because it was such a long day (and I had an ever-so-slight hip injury when I tripped on my stairs the day before which made it difficult to run and leap into vans multiple times throughout the day.) But 16+ hours later, I got to my hotel room and totally crashed. I soaked my poor aching feet (the heels finally got to me at about hour #13.)

We woke up on Sunday and boarded the press charter (ooooh how I've missed the press charter!) to Cleveland. We cover DNC Rally #4- his last. After hearing his speech how many times in the past few months, it was over. We drove back to the airport and got home by 6:30. The whole trip lasted only 34 hours but it felt like a week!! I'm tired all over again from just writing this blogpost! I think I'm going to crash once again!