Where in the world am I?

  • Article

The more I travel, the more I realize how small our world has gotten. Rarely do I find myself somewhere without the comforts of home readily available to me. I think back to the stories my grandfather use to tell me of his travels (he traveled the world working for Boeing) and I realize how different things are now.

When he traveled, he couldn't call home at any time from a cell phone that automatically connected to the local provider. He didn't have a Starbucks to go to where he could get his usual drink made, exactly like if he were at the Starbucks in his neighborhood. Most of the time, he would eat the local flavor because there wasn't a McDonalds, or a San Francisco Steak House in the region, and the hotel served mostly local-style food.

So here I am, far from home, and oh how the world has shrunk. Guess where I am:

I woke up at 8:30 am local time. After I showered and checked email I went to the Club Lounge of my hotel to exchange currency and have breakfast - a bowl of Rice Crispies with a banana, some chicken sausage, breakfast potatoes and a glass of orange juice. After breakfast I stepped out of my hotel to the shopping mall next door. As I entered the shopping mall I passed by a number of well known retailers - Louis Vuton, Escada, Banana Republic, Hugo Boss, and more. I was even approached by a men's cologne salesman asking me to try a sample of a new cologne (Tommy Hilfiger, I think). After that I went to a Starbucks and ordered a Triple Grande Nonfat Vanilla Latte. My wife called me on my cell phone from her cell phone while driving using the Bluetooth-enabled sound system so I could say, "Hi" to her and my daughter as they were driving around our home town. I went back to the hotel and used MSN Messenger to have a Video Phone call with them before my daughter went to bed.

This is certainly not how my grandfather traveled.

For the record, I am in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. TechEd Southeast Asia starts tomorrow, where I am presenting on the quality tools in Visual Studio Team System (Unit Testing & TDD, and Data Load testing in VSTS for DB Pro's). Tonight I will be presenting at a local user group along with Adam Cogan.

Technorati tags: Traveling, TechEd SEA, Starbucks