'Round the World in 2008

The Spring of 2008 turned out to be one of most intensive periods of travel in my 30+ years of work. I had been part of team that developed a new set of practices for how to run our Process Control systems safely and securely. Now it was time to train all the practitioners in roughly 65 chemical plants and refineries around the world. So, Dave Fleming and I set off on a world tour from March 31 till July 10, though most of it was in the weeks from May 5 to June 19. Each course was 4 or 5 days, and then we were off to the next site with maybe a few days of pleasure in between. I did my best to squeeze in vacation time wherever I could, knowing that this opportunity would not come again.

Houston course	March 31 - April 3
Ordinary days in the office	April 7 - 11
CSST Global Meeting in Singapore	April 14 - 18
Vacation in Thailand with Susan	April 19 - 27
Back home for 4 days in the office	April 28 - May 1
Singapore course	May 5 - 9
Tokyo course	May 12 - 16
Vacation in Osaka	May 19 - 23
Vacation in Vienna	May 25
Brussels course	May 26 - 29
Fawley course	June 2 - 5
Vacation in Collingwood	June 9 - 13
Toronto course	June 16 - 19
Ordinary days in the office	June 23 - July 4
Fairfax course	July 7 - 10

The flights were all on Star Alliance partners - gathering me a pretty good pile of AeroPlan points. This was a special "Round the World" airfare. The travel agent had to ask Air Canada for a quote because the standard ticketing programs could not handle it. You wouldn't believe the cost - about $11,700 in Business Class. Normal return airfare to Singapore would normally have been about $8,000 in Business Class. Here's the routing:

The following pages are mostly pictures with a little travelogue to point out the highlights.