Twenty-five guys,
crammed into a room fit for 20,
most of which English isn’t their native language,
certainly Southern English isn’t,
even though the room was too warm,
and I’d been talking for four straight hours,
about a geeky network management appliance,
and it was just after lunch,
nobody fell asleep!

Damn, I am good.

Its ten after eleven tonight and up until recently the sky was still lit. The clouds never parted today, though it was just as well. I had lots of inside work to do and still no cash for outside fun. Things are looking up, however.

Soon after my previous posting, I made a stroll up to the nearest bank, located in a mall. After a twenty minute walk in the drizzle, I entered the mall exactly at the opposite end from the bank I wanted to visit. Another ten minutes of walking brought me there, where I was promptly told in stumbling English that I could not withdrawl cash from my credit card there. This was in spite of what Kelly was told by our credit card company, but who am I to argue? Thwarted yet again, I made the long twenty minute walk through drizzle back to the hotel. Moral to this story: when you forget your ATM card, you get a lot of exercise.

My European coworkers had arrived when I returned. Thus I had a server to configure. It was good seeing them again and we had a good time getting everything ready. Niall is an Irishman who lives in London and Ray is a Dutchman from here. We did some work before jumping in Ray’s car to eat at the local burger joint called Bear Burger. The theme of Bear Burger is one where hundreds of stuffed teddy bears line the walls. I was stuffed, too, after eating my cheeseburger! Thank you! Thank you very much!

We talked about sports and driving among other things and headed back to the hotel to finish up. Ray called it a day around 6PM, right after Al arrived from NJ. We worked up until 9PM before the World Cup coverage started, whereas we wandered down to the hotel bar for dinner and beers. I enjoyed tonight’s matchup between the Netherlands and Argentina, even though it was 0-0 the whole time I watched it.

By 10:30 I was doing more yawning than I should’ve and bid everyone good night. I put in a quick VoIP call to Kelly, caught up on some email, and stared at my bed as I wrote this from the chair three feet away. I’m looking forward to another night of good sleep before kicking off tomorrow’s training. Wish me luck!

I’m starting my first full day in Holland (a.k.a the Netherlands). Its rainy and cool this morning with a temperature around 60F (15C). I didn’t bring an umbrella so its fortunate I’ve got lots to do at the hotel this morning.

I got to Amsterdam around noon yesterday. The flight from London was around 40 minutes long. I enjoyed looking out the window at the English Channel, though it was mostly obscured by clouds.

Holland is one of the most laid-back countries I’ve visited. The immigration agent barely looked at my passport before stamping it and sending me on my way. Customs was simply walking through a door. What a refreshing difference from the Nazi police-state security we “enjoy” in America. I suppose the Dutch have been trading so long that nothing fazes them anymore.

Holland has superb train service, so getting around is relatively easy once you get the hang of it. While English is widely spoken here, all the signs at the train stations are in Dutch. Also there are few attendants at the stations to ask about directions. I spent a bit of time studying maps carefully before hopping on a train.

At the airport station, I met a man from California in town for a trade show. He’d been to Amsterdam before so he gave me some pointers about finding a hotel near Amsterdam as well as tips for the train. I got a suggestion for a hotel and hopped a train to find it. Though I only went one stop beyond the airport, I was surprised to find the area was not as urban as I expected. I walked around for 30 or 45 minutes looking for the hotel but never found it. One Crown Plaza hotel I did find had a rate of 285 euros a night, which I thought was a bit high. Later I found that this rate is typical. Sheesh.

I gave up on getting a hotel in Amsterdam for last night and hopped a train to Rotterdam. It took a little over an hour but I got here. There were no public phones near the train station so I used one at a local convenience store to call the hotel. Another 30 minutes later I was at the hotel. (I discovered a shortcut later which makes the walk only 15 minutes).

I somehow was stupid enough not to bring my ATM card with me. Stupid, stupid mistake. Once I got to Rotterdam I did not have enough cash to take the train back to Amsterdam. The banks were closed as well, leaving me few choices for dinner other than the hotel restaurant. I will wander out today to a bank to withdraw cash from my credit card, though I will miss the half day I could have spent looking around Amsterdam.

After dinner at the hotel I wandered back to my hotel room, where I checked email and did some reading. The jet lag caught up to me, however, and I crashed around 9:30 PM, sleeping until about 7 this morning.

Today I’ve got a test network to configure at the hotel for the training. Once that’s done I should be able to do more exploring. With any luck the sky will clear and I can get some walking in. I also hope to take some pictures as I’ve taken zero since arriving.

I’m in Gatwick airport now after a smooth and easy flight. It boggles the mind that in the time it takes to catch a connecting flight from Raleigh to California I can be in Europe instead. The American Airlines flight to Gatwick is so easy. I was feeling smug when the flight map showed us flying right past New York.

I had a misstep here when I walked off the jetway and caught the bus to the wrong terminal for my connecting flight. Twenty minutes later I was back on course. Now I wait until a gate is assigned to my Amsterdam flight, which should begin boarding in a half hour.

I hear American accents all around me as I wait in the lounge. So far I feel right at home, though I’m sure that will change when I reach Amsterdam.

I’m somewhat rested and feel great to be here, though I miss hearing “good morning” from my family. Fortunately its a short trip.

My flight is boarding now. You can follow my trip across the pond courtesy of FlightAware. Don’t be alarmed if the tracking stops just past Greenland. That’s as far as the FAA tracks flights.

Right now the previous flight 174 is showing up. I suspect mine will be wheels-up by 7:10 PM.

So long!

I’m traveling again this week – this time to the Netherlands. It will be my first trip to the Netherlands and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be conducting two days of training in Rotterdam. I head over Monday evening, have Tuesday to get acclimated, do the set up Wednesday, train on Thursday and Friday, and travel back Saturday.

Look for some interesting posts during the next few days.

I got back from Pittsburg Thursday evening. It was a wasted trip, as for whatever reason the client had a conflicting meeting and didn’t see us. I wasn’t thrilled in the first place about making a trip when a simple online conference would do the trick. Looks like I was right to be skeptical.

I got back to the airport in time to catch an earlier flight to Philadelphia, though only by luck. I had to fly standby and hope I could do the same for the last leg back to RDU. It turns out the plane from Philly to RDU was oversold, thus most of Thursday was spent in Airport Terminal Hell waiting for my original flight.

Travel is tough enough when things go as planned. When they don’t its twice as bad. I wasted a huge chunk of the company’s money, not to mention a huge amount of my time away from work and the family. Idiotic.

I mentioned that almost eight inches of rain fell on Raleigh yesterday due to Tropical Storm Alberto. This morning I get the results of my home weather station:

Rain Rate: 0.00 in/h Yesterday: 7.24 in Total:19.41 in since 1/ 3 14:40
Barometer: Steady at 29.74 in 30.05 in sea; 12-24hr forecast: Sunny

See that? We got 7.24 inches of rain in 24 hours. Unbelievable.

I’m in Pittsburgh tonight for an early business meeting. It was a much longer trip than expected. My flight took me through Philadelphia and was on schedule, despite the bumpy ride that Tropical Storm Alberto supplied. My initial connecting flight wasn’t scheduled to leave Philadelphia until late so I did a little surfing at RDU airport before my flight took off. Thanks to my work I was able to discover a flight leaving a mere twenty minutes after my flight arrived. It was a close window but perhaps I could make it and save hours of travel.

I disembarked from the plane only to see the connecting jet at the gate all cranked up and ready to depart. Fortunately, a few minutes of observation showed the plane was just arriving! I had time to go through airport security again before checking in at the earlier flight. With a ticket in hand, I was thinking I was pretty slick.

Except I wasn’t. The plane was halfway to the runway when we heard the pilot cut the engines. A ground stop had been initiated “due to the weather,” we were told, and we weren’t going anywhere. A few fits and starts here and there had us wondering if we’d soon be airborne but it was not to be. The 50 minute flight turned into a 2:30 minute flight. At least it wasn’t just us: there were fifty or so planes surrounding us on the tarmac, each just as screwed as we were.

Air travel. It just doesn’t get any better than this.