Boy, have we got a vacation for you

What an insane week. And not a "good" kind of insane either.

Let me preface this post by saying that I was sent on this trip to Scotland to cover the event as a journalist. And in all fairness, I'm feeling obliged to do just that. I very much appreciate the opportunity to go on this kind of trip, but I went to report for real on what I saw, not to be bribed into writing good things to appease the folks paying my ticket and accommodations, and I would hope my hosts would appreciate that fact.

With that in mind, I feel compelled to make a comment about this trip. It was, well, a bit of a mess. Lots of things were promised to the media (including us bloggers) by the non-profit organizers and not much was delivered. We were told we'd have briefings with US policymakers over dinner, we'd get credentials to the G8 itself, we'd be given personal interviews on and off the plane with all sorts of big players, major celebrities and more. Well, pretty much none of that happened. Why? Well, if any of us knew who was actually in charge of working with the media all week, perhaps we could ask someone that very question.

(I will say that the non-profit staff we did work with, who seemingly were given no power to do their jobs, were wonderful. It's just that they were mostly junior staff, so when all hell broke loose, and we needed the big guns to fix the disaster that this trip became, there was no one to be found.)

Putting the substance of the trip aside, Scotland is truly gorgeous, and Edinburgh is of a world-class capitol kind of beauty - seriously, it's THAT magnificent. And the people are just wonderful. Can't recommend it enough. And make sure you go the Starbucks, they have real cool Starbucks Scotland mugs (not kidding, they're way cool).

Back to my own personal visit to WestWorld, I want to add one more thing. If you're a big poverty-focused non-profit and you plan on putting people on a Virgin Atlantic international flight that has such small, painful, crammed-together sardine seats that it's literally one of the worst airline experiences of their lives, you might want to avoid having your own staff spend the same flight getting drunk at the first class bar.