Last Thursday, I flew to Monterey, CA for a quick 24 hour work trip! For those unfamiliar with Monterey, it’s about an hour south of San Francisco and is a cute little beach town. It’s a great place for camping, surfing, and eating seafood! We were having a work event and they organized to have everyone stay at the Hyatt Regency, a hotel that appeared to me to be 80% golf course. I flew into the San Jose airport, encumbered down by my gigantic work bag and my much smaller overnight bag. Took a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, and being in Silicon Valley, even the little bus had wifi!
Right away, all 500 of us were served dinner alongside speakers and good conversation. Dinner was a tasteless salad, a pretty tasteless orzo situation with tasteless chicken and green beans. My colleagues didn’t mind my constant photo taking - probably distracted them from the meal!
The wine was flowing, however, and the cheesecake for dessert was DELICIOUS. I ate the entire thing!
After dinner there was lots of networking and socializing, and they had fake gambling games around. I sort of learned how to play craps (is that how it is spelled? or is it crabs?) but lost most of my fake $$ on russian roulette. Not much strategy involved there. It was a great time to catch up with old friends and teammates, meet some new ones too, and take advantage of the wine.
In the morning for those ambitious folks (high five to myself) there was a 7am run to the beach. We split up into three groups - the walkers, the slow joggers, and the runners. I joined the slow joggers group! The beach was about a mile from the hotel, and we ran along the sand and the wharf. Saw a beautiful but foggy sunrise, and gawked at the fishing boats. I think we jogged for about 40 minutes, with a solid uphill on the way back!
Breakfast was a beautiful fruit spread, greek yogurt, and homemade granola. Lots of coffee on the side after an evening of fun and an early morning wake up call!
Then we did stuff like this for another couple hours, and ate a tasty bagged lunch.
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After the sessions, it was time for the famous Monterey Aquarium! Highlights for me including the “Jellyfish Experience” and when they fed the sea otters and the penguins.
Me and a colleague explored downtown Monterey after we grew tired of the Aquarium - Canary Street felt like a cute beach boardwalk! Lots of goodies to be sampled and old school restaurants. Then the day in Monterey was up, and it was time for me to head back to the airport. I snagged standby on an earlier flight AND got free froyo.
All in all, I enjoyed the quick trip up to Monterey a lot. I especially appreciated spending time catching up with colleagues, and meeting some new friends as well! I can’t wait to move up to San Francisco later this year and explore more of those cute little seaside towns. I was a little sad I didn’t get to take advantage of all the tasty seafood…so there’s always next time!
Thanks for stopping by! 
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