by ezs | Dec 16, 2005 | evilzenscientist, travel, Uncategorized
Today is Friday. I am back in the UK -and on the train again. This time heading north from London to Leeds on GNER.
On the positive side – it’s a nice fast journey up to Leeds – no hassle of flights, getting to and from the airport and all of the checkin hassle. It’s also a lot lot faster than driving (probably four hours each way – which would hurt). There is also free Wifi on the train (woo!) – which is actually useful (sync of mail and get some research complete).
On the negative side – the value is questionable. While less than flying – it still hurts to pay so much for a flexible ticket.
by ezs | Dec 15, 2005 | evilzenscientist, travel, Uncategorized
It’s Thursday – I’m in Frankfurt.
I am using guest internet access at the Star Alliance offices here in Frankfurt. That’s good fun.
by ezs | Dec 15, 2005 | evilzenscientist, travel, Uncategorized
Late posting this – but hopefully interesting.
We landed at Heathrow on Sunday morning – and saw a massive black smoke cloud as we were landing. Only after we arrived did we realise that one of Europes largest fires was burning on our flight path.
On Sunday afternoon we all went to the park – the sky was very strange; a wintery sky with a huge black cloud blocking out the northern part of the sky. Very eery.
On the train on Monday I saw the fires more closely. An enormous pillar of smoke covered the sky:
by ezs | Dec 14, 2005 | travel, Uncategorized
Another day in Europe. Today Hamburg, Germany.
Every time I have visited customers in Hamburg it has rained. Drizzle or heavy rain – it always seems to be raining in Hamburg. When I was last visiting customers a Novell account manager told me that was why people from Hamburg had an affinity for English people – they are all used to the rain!
The highlight of the day was visiting Airbus – and seeing the Airbus 380 fabrication building. The scale of infrastructure that has been put in place to build this plane is incredible. There are no superlatives left. Wings are assembled in the UK, fuselage in France, the whole thing is assembled in Hamburg. Seeing the A380 up close was humbling.
Travel back from Airbus is always fun – taking the ferry from the customer site, across the Elbe and then on to the airport by taxi.
by ezs | Dec 13, 2005 | travel, Uncategorized
Today I was in Paris.
I travelled on Eurostar – leaving from London Waterloo to Paris Gare du Nord.
I arrived – and there were no taxis available – and a queue of several hundred people waiting. I resorted to diving into the Metro to travel across to the Novell office in the west of the city – near La Defense.
Turned out there was a strike on the RER – and some RER commuter trains were not running through Paris.
One benefit of taking the Metro is to ogle the timeless 1950’s design of some of the metro stations; Franklin D Roosevelt is one of my favourites – orange, silver and harsh lines; with delightful, gallic station names.
A good set of meetings with customers and partners – this is the first time back in Paris for a few years.
At the end of the day out to Paris Airport Charles de Gaulle – again major delays because ofthe SNCF strike – I have never seen people so crammed into a train.
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