"Who is that really hot guy in the ascot?"

The real reason for my weekend trip back to Dallas was that David, the Director (and friend) for whom I have been working almost exclusively for the past few years, was being admitted to the PwC partnership. Making Partner is a pretty big deal and I was happy to make the trip to help celebrate.

In preparing for my trip, I collected gifts for some of my closest friends, but also planned a little surprise for David, too. For a little background, he and I were in New York for work last year - after it had already been decided that I would be working in Luxembourg for awhile. As we walked down the street, we spotted a gentleman at a sidewalk cafe wearing a strange piece of neckwear. David looked at me and said something to the effect of, "you need to get yourself an ascot when you move to Europe."

With that in mind, I decided I did "need to get myself an ascot" and wear it on David's big day - so I did. But I didn't just wear it to get a laugh at the champagne toast in the office, I wore it all day long. From the champagne toast, to lunch at Taco Diner, to happy hour at Truluck's and even to dinner at Nick & Sam's. I got a few laughs, plenty of strange looks and some people thought I was being serious in wearing it. Some probably still do...and maybe I was.

True love

I just returned to Luxembourg from a whirlwind weekend full of friends, food, shopping and music in Dallas (and Arlington and Fort Worth). I was scolded for not having updated the blog and told I could (or should) post shorter entries that don’t require an outline, theme and 8,000 words. So here is a quick note about my journey back to Luxembourg:

I mentioned that my weekend involved shopping and, in addition to a number of other items, I bought three suits and a sports coat that required alterations. I was slightly nervous about timing, but was assured they would all be finished in time for me to pick them up on the way to the airport for my 14:40 flight. I calculated that if I left the office at 11:00 (I had some last minute work to do before getting on the plane, too), and if all went smoothly, I should be able to arrive at the airport at 12:40 – the recommended two hours prior to an international flight. That said, I hoped to leave the office a little earlier knowing that things seldom work out perfectly.

Surprisingly enough, and even though I couldn’t escape the office until almost exactly 11:00 after making the rounds and saying good-bye to everyone, things went exactly as planned. I picked up the suits at the suit shop, the sports coat from the mall, dropped off the Tahoe at the storage place and arrived at the airport 12:37. I even had time to run through the mall in search of a pair of pink Converse – a last minute request from a friend at work. I do have to thank Dad, though, for offering to pick me up at the storage place. In true Robert Hankins style, he was 15 minutes earlier than I asked and he saved me about $35 in cab fare (and stress over whether the cab would show up at the right place at the right time).

Once I got through security, I went to the gate to ask if it would be possible to change seats and sit in an emergency exit or bulkhead row. As tall as I am, and flying in economy class, I can use all the extra room I can get. The agent told me that the flight was oversold and there were currently no seats available. Bummer.

Next stop – lunch. Terminal D has some pretty good options from which to choose a last meal before going back to the land of bad steaks and nearly non-existent Mexican food. I settled on Blue Mesa and sat down to a 12” burrito and a margarita. Expecting to sit in a cramped seat with no legroom for 9hrs, I thought another margarita might help me to relax and sleep a little better. And if two margaritas were good, wouldn’t three be even better?

By the time I polished off the third margarita, it was time to start boarding so I made a quick trip to the toilet and jumped into the priority access line. While I was standing in line, the ticket agent waved me over to tell me she had an exit row seat for me after all. She said she had been paging me for awhile and asked where I had been. I told her I was trying to squeeze in some Mexican food and margaritas before heading back to Europe. Then I told her I loved her as she handed me my new ticket. And at that moment, I really did.

Though I didn’t get to see everyone I hoped to see, and didn’t get to spend as much time with anyone as I would have liked, I had a great weekend and am already looking forward to my next trip back…whenever that may be.