No Fun

I should’ve known that the trip was starting poorly when Jen and Sam came down with a flu bug Friday night / Saturday morning. So, I left them in a feverish state and made my way to O’hare for the 10:41am flight to Newark, NJ to catch my 6:00pm flight to Brussels, Belgium.

Checked in and chilled in the terminal for a bit and the flight was delayed a bit due to the incoming flight not arriving on time. Ok, so, no big deal. About 45 minutes after we’re supposed to depart, we finally board the flight.

We taxi out to the runway, but hold short. The pilot shuts the engines down and announces that air traffic control has indicated that we have another 30 minute delay. Ok, so, no big deal… I have magazines and some crazy bearded guy sitting next to me to stare at.

An HOUR later the pilot announces that ATC has extended the delay for another hour and a half. He says that he understands and that he is trying to get home for his son’s basketball game. Too much info from the pilot? Who cares… We taxi back to the gate and start the motions of exiting the aircraft to wait out the 1.5 hours. Just before they opened the doors to let people out, the pilot comes on the speaker one last time and says “uhh, folks, some bad news, the flight has been canceled. There are severe storms, winds on the east coast and we can’t fly in. Sorry.”

Ok, crap, my connecting flight is at 6pm in Newark, so now we’re pushing it. Me and about 150 other people scurry over to the United customer service counter. At this point, there are already about 100 people in line, in addition to the extra bulk that just got canceled.

I hop in line with the ~250 other people and get on the phone with the company travel people. I explain myself to the agent on the phone and am told that there are no more flights to Newark available, nor are there any open seats on any flights to New York (in hopes of taxing it over to Newark).

At this point I’ve come to grips with the fact that I’m not making the Newark to Brussels flight and ask the agent about other options. He tells me about several different flights leaving on Sunday, but leaving on Sunday means arriving Monday, which won’t work due to meetings and schedules. So, he looks for flights later in the day and finds one leaving at 8:25pm on British Airways.

He then tells me that if he cancels the previous flight it will cancel the entire trip of flights, including my return flight home. I tell him to book the later flight and we’ll deal with the cancellation later. At this point I need to get to Brussels. Done.

I then go talk to the United baggage person and ask how I get my bag so I can get it on my new flight. Guess what, once your bag is on a plane, you don’t get it back. It supposedly follows you to your destination on the next available flight. This seems a bit too much like black magic, so I explain my situation to the nice lady and she “sends a message” to tell my bag to reroute itself to British Airways on my flight. Hmm, I thank her and go over to the International terminal, which is a train ride away. I check in, surprised I didn’t get probed due to my one way ticket.

Sitting in the international terminal, I decide to call the company travel people back and shore up the previous flights. They tell me that if I’m not on the first legs of the “old” flights, the airline will cancel the entire trip for me. They tell me to go to the airline counter and talk to them about it. Well, that’s back in the other terminal. So, I hop back on the shuttle train and off I went. After listening to the people in front of me explain to the lady that they have a suitcase full of “vitamins” and they are on a medical mission, I’m thinking the worst about my talk with her, next.

I explain the situation to her and she just hands me a pamphlet and tells me to call reservations. So, I do and it just disconnects me telling me that there are storms in the north east and they are busy. I relay that info to the lady and reiterate my dilemma to her. If I wait until I get to my destination, a day will have past and I will have not been on the first legs of my flight and I don’t want to get stuck over there with nothing scheduled coming home.

She sighs at me and shuffles thru my papers and whacks the keyboard for a minute. She looks up and says “ok, you’re all set”. I say “all set? What’s the deal?”. She says “you can miss you’re flights now and the system won’t automatically cancel your later flight legs.”. I thank her for her time and take the train back to the international terminal.

Going back through international security was also fun. Not only does everyone look at me funny because I travel with a backpack full of computer equipment, but the pants I wore have metal buttons on them. So, no matter what, the metal detectors beeped when I walk through. 10 minutes later, after letting the TSA agent get to third base with me, I repack my bags and head to the gate. Note to self: Don’t wear these pants when flying again.

Having over two more hours to kill at this point I decide to write this blog post instead of reading a magazine or judging people as they walk by.

It’s currently 6:48pm and the flight leaves at 8:25pm. We’re boarding at 7:30pm so there’s not too much more time to kill…

I’ll update this posting as the trip progresses. This is only the beginning and I really hope it gets better from here.

Side note: it’s amazing the outfits people where to the airport. Good lord people… Ok, so maybe I have been judging the people waking by me.

^^^
This section above written entirely on my iPhone. I can speed type like a mofo on this thing.

UPDATE:
March 15, 2010 @ 6:38pm Belgium time

Arrived safely in Brussels yesterday. My bag, however, did not. Since I changed flights, my bag stopped in Newark, NJ instead of going to Brussels. This morning (Monday), I had to wear my street clothes and ask my colleague to help me find some suitable business clothes to wear to our meetings. He was kind enough to take me to a local shopping place, that reminded me of Sam’s Club. I was able to find an outfit to wear and get some essentials that I needed.

We went about our business on Monday and as we were about to leave for the 5 hour drive to Germany, we called the baggage claim company to check the status of my bag. They indicated that the bag had just arrived and that we could pick it up at the airport. We just happened to be right near the airport so we swung in and picked it up. I was very relieved to get it. I was worried that I wouldn’t see it for a few days…

We are currently en-route to Germany and are somewhere in the Netherlands right now. It’s dark and raining, so there aren’t many sights to see along the road right now.

None of us have eaten since this morning, so we stopped at a gas station to get a quick snack and plan to stop for dinner in a little while.

Got the waffle as a snack and let me tell you… Waffle covered in sugar equals a winning situation. My colleague told me that in the summer you can buy them hot and fresh and they are even better.

I’ll update later, perhaps after we get to the hotel in Hanover.

UPDATE:

March 16, 2010 @ 2:10am (8:10pm CST previous day)

Made it to the hotel in Hannover, Germany.  The drive on the Autobahn was nice.  Dark and raining but going 160kmph (~100mph) at times was fun.  We stopped at Burger King and had a Whopper and a beer.  Also saw they were selling Cola & Beer, beer.  Had to try it, so I did. It was interesting, not too bad, actually quite tasty.

When we got to the hotel, we mingled with the customer for a bit, then retired to our rooms.  Found out that the wifi in the lobby is on a different pay scale than the Internet in the guest rooms.  Thanks for telling me that front desk lady that could only speak 2 sentences of English…  :)

Found out a few things along the way to Germany…

1. Waffles covered in sugar are awesome (see picture above).
2. Cola & Beer is tasty.
3. You have to pay to use the bathrooms in most public bathrooms (see picture below).
4. 3G connectivity between Belgium and Germany is pretty good. Was able to connect and update the blog while hauling down the Autobahn.

It’s pushing 2:30am right now, so I better try to sleep, busy day starting in a few hours.  Till next time…

UPDATE:

March 16, 2010 @ 7:30am Hannover, Germany time (1:30am CST)

Awake and ready to go take on Germany.  Someone called my phone at 5:30am this morning.  Me, thinking it was a wake up call, got up and stumbled around the room looking for lights and trying to figure out why it was so dark out at 7:00am.  Then, I realized it was 5:30am and mumbled WTF and went back to bed.  Till later…

UPDATE:

March 16, 2010 @ 11:45pm (5:45pm CST)

Meetings went well today.  Saw the city center of Hanover, Germany.  The city was very quaint, some very traditional German architecture mixed with some very Scandinavian buildings and streets…  Not a lot of gift type shopping, but enjoyed walking around and taking in the scenery.

We then hopped back into the car and started off on the 2 and a half hour drive to Burscheid, Germany.  We arrived to where the GPS said our final destination was, but there was no road to get to the hotel.  The iPhone maps showed that we were very close to the hotel, just no road like the other (windows phone) GPS system said there was.  After a few trial and error attempts to get there, we got on the phone with another colleague who was already at the hotel to find out exactly what the black magic secret was to get to the hotel.  Turns out, we had gone done a wrong road and although we were within 100 yards of the hotel, we couldn’t get there from where we were.  A little back tracking and we arrived at the hotel.

The hotel is called Altenberger Hof.  It is a very old church / monastery.  There is a cool looking church right outside my room window.  The room I’m in is very small, or so I thought (more on that, in a minute).  It has two twin beds, a 13″ CRT TV, desk, closet and bathroom.  Each door in the room has it’s own skeleton key.  It’s pretty interesting.  The bathroom is large, compared to the room, although, there is only a bathtub with a hand-held shower wand, with no shower curtain.  Should be interesting when I attempt to shower in the morning.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this or not, but out of the 4 people who traveled from the US, myself and one other are the only ones who have working mobile phones.  The others, not so much.  I receive a text message from the other guy indicating they were in the restaurant for dinner.  I head down there and the restaurant is very nice/fancy.  We order our drinks and listen to the specials.

I decide on a veal steak with mushrooms and mixed vegetables.  Holy moly it was fantastic.

For desert I get tiramisu.  No picture of the tiramisu, but it was also fantastic.

Once we finish dinner and our beers, we all head back to our rooms.  During dinner we’re all comparing stories of what our rooms look like.  I mention I have two twin beds in my room and it is very small.  My colleague mentions that his room has one single twin sized bed in his room and his room was small.  Once we get back to our rooms, which were a few doors down from each other, he mentions we should compare rooms.  He pokes his head into my room and says it’s a lot bigger than his.  I go check it out and it is indeed about 25% larger than his.  The bathroom in my room is large, while his is tiny.  He has a shower and I have a bathtub with hand-held shower wand thing.  I think I got the better room, especially with the view of the church out the window.  When it’s light out, I’ll snap a picture of the view and plan to take the DSLR camera out on a little scouting mission early in the morning, so there will be ample pictures coming later.

All of these photos so far have been from my iPhone…

UPDATE:

March 21, 2010 @ 7:46pm

Hadn’t updated this blog since mid-week, from Germany.  Time to finish it…

In the last message I typed, I indicated I’d be doing a little DSLR scouting the next morning, well, I did and got some awesome pictures (in my opinion).  See below for a couple samples…  I’ll be posting a full image gallery at the end of the posting…

Meetings in Burscheid, Germany went normally, the customer facility is very nice, impressive.  After meetings were over, we set off for our trip back to Brussels, Belgium.

We left with enough time to hopefully be back  before it got dark.  While we didn’t make that goal, we made it back to Belgium early enough to visit the downtown area of Brussels. My  colleague and I met the customer for dinner in what they called “restaurant alley”…

After dinner we headed off to explore the city some more.  Brussells has a lot to see in one night.  The Grand Place was awesome to say the least.  Here’s a wikipedia article on it and one picture I took.  I lost my glasses in the train station, heading back to the hotel.  I remember taking them off while sitting down at the station and the next memory was on the train without my glasses.  Was so mad at myself for doing that.  Not that big of a deal, really.  Things aren’t THAT bad without my glasses.  I can deal.

The next morning (Thursday, March 18, 2010), we are Ireland bound to meet with our HP colleagues in Leixlip, Ireland.  As was standard for me, only slept about 3 hours on Wednesday night and woke up at 4am.  Packed my stuff up and got ready to leave Belgium.  I found out the night before, that the shuttle to the airport departed the hotel at 8:05am.  I head down to the front desk to check out at 7:45am and the guy told me that the shuttle would be here in a little while.  I waited by the front down, looked at my watch a few times and thought it was weird that I didn’t see it.  It was 8:00am and no shuttle.  I went back to the desk and asked what was up.  They said, it just pulls up the ramp, it should be there.  I go outside and sure enough, there it sat.  The guy was just about to leave, so I scurried over to it and wrapped on the door.  He gave me a “I sat here 10 minutes and you decide to come out right when I’m about to leave?” look and opened the door.  When others saw me board the shuttle, a few more ran out.  At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t see it sitting where it was.

When checking in for the flight, I’m informed that my checked bag is 5 kilos too heavy.  There was a pregnant pause where neither of us said anything.  I say “sooooooooo, what now, do you charge me or whats the next step?”  She said “yes, there will be a charge, 12 euro per kilo over the limit”.  I agree, because, what am I going to do, leave my clothes and stuff behind?

Around $100 later, the flight to Dublin was pretty uneventful, although, my colleague is 99.9% sure that Colin Farrell was sitting two rows behind me (two rows in front of him).  I didn’t see him, but I don’t focus on who’s sitting around me too much.  Guess maybe I should from now on.  The guy sitting directly next to me was a piece of work.  He was nice enough, in the 3 words we said to each other.  He was like a cartoon character.  Specifically, the farmer from Shaun the Sheep (a Wallace & Gromit spin-off).  Click the link to see a picture…

Upon arrival into Dublin, our local HP colleague tells us that there will be a taxi driver strike from noon to 3:00pm.  We arrived at 11:00am.  We grabbed our bags and jumped in a taxi and headed for the hotel to drop our things and head to the office for meetings that were scheduled.  After we dropped our bags, we were told that there were no more taxis available, due to the strike.  Ok, well, crap, this isn’t good.  I get in touch with our colleague again and she calls a local Leixlip cab company to see if they could help.  Sure enough, a brave soul drives into the city to pick us up.  The driver was very nice and was a wealth of information.  We asked about the strike and what it was all about.  He explains it, made sense what they were doing.  The driver took the taxi sign off his car before coming into Dublin.  He said that he didn’t want to be seen working during the strike and that he wasn’t comfortable driving around in the city.  We took side streets through Dublin to avoid major roads and since Leixlip is out in the country a bit, it was fine once we left the city center area.

Meetings went normally.  In the evening, we met some people at a place called Fire, right near our hotel in Dublin City Center.  Very nice place, great food, great atmosphere.  Afterward, our hosts take us to a place called Kehoe’s, right down the street where I have my first official pint of Guinness of the trip.  Our hosts indicated that Kehoe’s was a local favorite and had some of the best Guinness in Dublin.

We visited a few more pubs in the area, just to see what else was around.  McDades was nice as well.

The next day (Friday), we had meetings until mid-day.  Once the meetings were over, we did a little exploration of Dublin.  We took a “hop on, hop off” bus around the city.  Sure, it’s touristy to do, but I was a tourist, so, who cares…  We saw all the major landmarks expected to see, hopped off at a few of them and caught the next bus that came around to continue. Below, is St. Patrick’s Cathedral, from the garden area and a shot from the Guinness tour we took.

We road the bus until it stopped, which was at around 5:30pm or so.  We were about a mile or so from our hotel, so we decided to walk back and do a little shopping on the way back.  I whip out the iPhone and do a pedestrian map back to the hotel.  Very accurate and helpful.  Was able to find some good finds shopping as well.  It started raining about half way back to the hotel, which was fine and par for the course.  Got wet, but had fun.

After changing into some dry clothes, we ventured back out to find some food.  Ended up at an American restaurant called “Captain America’s“.  It was very cliche in my opinion, but had pretty dang good food.  Note about paying with credit cards during this trip, not just in Dublin, but everywhere we had been.  Every place had little hand-held credit card terminals, which they brought to us and printed the receipts at the table.  Very cool, why don’t we have these in the States?

I had a 9:00am flight home the next day, so it was a fairly early night.  Flights home were fine, no major issues, or bag losses.  Note to self:  Wear nice clothes when flying, you’re treated better than if in street clothes.  Proved this to myself during this trip by doing a few social tests with the airlines on my coming and going flights where I wore different types of clothing on each trip.  Bottom line, if you look more important, they treat you more important.  Of course, I could be way off, at least that’s what happened to me.

Here are a selection of the un-corrected pictures taken during the trip…  I could add a little color correction to these, but no time right now.  Some duplicates from the postings above…  The order of the photos is a bit off, I used 3 different cameras during the trip, so the filenames are screwing up the sorting of these.  Not sure why it won’t just sort on image capture date, but that’s another story…  Hope you enjoyed the story of my trip.