I get more amazed by this company every year.  A couple of weeks ago I had the great opportunity to join some of my Western Europe High Potential colleagues for a training in a three day training in Amsterdam.  The amazing accomplishments, stories and insights from these 90 people was a fabulous experience.  To also have Microsoft invest so much into us helps me feel proud that the company truly understands its asset is its people.  I would be more than pleased to work for any of the people I interacted with over the three days.  In these three days we focused on bring out our voices as leaders and what is critical in empowering our people and teams to be great!  So many of the things you know but when you get caught up in the execution and everyday hustle and bustle you forget!  I truly enjoyed our trainer, Martinuzzi, Bruna.  If you have never engaged with her, you definitely should.  Her energy was contagious and her insights into your soul quite perceptive.  I love my learning circle!  You are probably thinking what is a learning circle…  It is a great program in which you have 5-6 of your peers question you through a challenge your facing until you come up with the right solution to solve it.  You are not supposed to give advice but in the end a little advice is shared and with the years of experience in different parts of the business it is great to get a fresh mind to help you overcome blockers you are giving yourself.   It is unbelievable in the short amount of time how much trust you build and how much you can share with strong amazing people.  My guys are great and we will meet again in February in Barcelona, one of the most fabulous cities in Europe!  After the training, my husband joined me for a nice relaxing weekend in Amsterdam.  I do suggest coming in the summer not winter- it was really cold!  A few pictures of the festivities…

So we just concluded a two day offsite in Munich with the WW Security and Privacy Leads with a couple Chief Security Advisors thrown into the mix.  We had representatives from Central Eastern Europe, Russia, UK, Canada, Latin America, Germany and Norway.  It was a great mix of folks with a wealth of knowledge.  We discussed our challenges and break through ideas to truly help our customers and partners protect their data, infrastructure and information for their companies with our security and privacy features, advocacy and solutions.  Can you believe we sit on a council with all our security competitors sharing information to ensure we help customers from any vunerabilities.  We also had the opportunity to do a little team building and did an Italian cooking school- who would have ever known we had so many great chefs.  It was a great little place next to the English Theater.  It was super cute, very cool renovation from garage to cooking school.  I now know how to make my favorite dessert: Tiramisu.  Here are some pictures of our cooking adventure:

I love Romania.  THe people are probably one of the most friendly in all of CEE.  So I took a trip to Romania with my husband to see the sites for a weekend, which turned out to be work.  What originally planned to be a weekend of sightseeing in Bucharest and then a sub visit on Monday turned out to be the Romania technical expert summit in a little village outside of Bucharest.  (A small town outside of Brasov called Sacele).  My husband was a good sport to land and ride 3.5 hours with one of my Romanian colleagues.  He arrived late at night at the little German like hotel and amused himself while I did session, we did head out for a short hike in the woods and saw many of the villagers hiking up to get fresh water from the mountain stream for the day.  While he was traveling to join me, I was scaling up a mountain side not dressed properly and having to borrow a sweatshirt and hiking boots from Loredana.  It was very beautiful.  I then had a presentation with the technical experts and some fruitful discussions on what Microsoft can do better to support technical communities.  We then got to partake in a Romanian festival and tried rotisserie Pig, Hungarian-Romanian Goulash, and the only vegetables Romanians eat is pickled- cucumbers, tomatoes, and cabbage.  We tried some Romanian partially fermented grape juice and regular wine.  Good times.   Afterwards we headed to Brasov, then to Dracula’s castle and then the long trip back to Bucharest (it should have taken 3 hours instead it took 6).  The next day, Greg and I joined Loredana for her 30 birthday celebration at a Mexican Restaurant.  It was very nice of Loredana’s husband to then drive us all over Burcharest after the dinner to ensure we saw all the sites! Greg then headed home and I went back to work at the Romanian subsidiary as we went through Q1 and Q2 plans and execution.  Some pictures below of the few days in Romania. 

A few fact about Romania for you.  Bucharest is hometo over 2.6M residents. Romanian legend has it that the city of Bucharest was founded on the banks of the Dambovita River by a shepherd named Bucur, whose name literarily means "joy." His flute playing reportedly dazzled the people and his hearty wine from nearby vineyards endeared him to the local traders, who gave his name to the place.  Bucharest is laden with historical charm – from the streets of the Old City Centre, which are slowly being restored, to the grand architecture of the Royal Palace and the lush green of Cismigiu Park. The city also claims a large number of museums, art galleries, exquisite Orthodox churches and unique architectural sites.  Nicolae Ceausescu’s legacy, including the Parliament Palace (formerly called the People’s Palace), which at 3.76 million square feet stands as the world’s second largest building after the U.S. Pentagon, provides an interesting introduction to the dictator’s megalomaniac vision.   I saw this and it has got to be larger than the Pentagon it goes 11 floors under ground and 11 floors up- it is amazing.  Very sad that people were starving and he had to create this palance for his ego than the betterment of the people of Bucharest.  Bucharest’s buzzing cultural scene – 37 museums, 22 theatres, concert halls, opera house, 18 art galleries, jazz clubs and hip nightclubs – will certainly keep you busy.  You must go visit- I highly recommend.  A few pictures of our trip: