Surfers Paradise

This week I spent two nights at the Surfers Paradise Marriott Hotel on the Gold Coast, Queensland. The company that I work for runs a lot of educational events for not-for-profits. This week we had one of our major two-day conferences which was specifically for CEOs of not-for-profit associations and charities. Being able to travel interstate quite regularly is a definite perk of my job. It's not always as glamorous as it sounds but I have to say that this trip was one that really made me step back and appreciate the opportunities work has given me. I also found being able to sit in on a lot of the sessions really interesting and beneficial for my own professional development. It's kinda cool to be able to learn so much about issues concerning those in high level management positions when I'm just in the very early stages of my career.

While I wasn't directly involved in organising this conference, there was still a lot of running about, mingling with CEOs and long hours. As a result, I'm pretty exhausted now and have managed to come down with a cold. Nonetheless, staying at the Marriott was fabulous and we managed to squeeze in a bit of time by the pool in our short breaks. Oh and our manager got upgraded to the Presidential Suite (pictured above) which was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. It was probably twice the size of my apartment and lavishly decorated. It didn't even have a number on the door, that's how fancy it was. I commented to my other colleagues, who were just as excited as me, that I'm glad I got to experience something like that once in my life time, even though it wasn't actually my room. These photos don't even begin to do it justice.