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ISOI part 3

Posted by  on 16 December 2008, 7:06 am

december 16th, munich airport. pleasantly surprised, a source of free wifi…i’m sure by this point the excitement doesn’t need to be explained. and as i write this i sense a familiar ‘lost’ scent. the scent of burned tobacco. it’s been a while since i’ve last tasted it, and for the last few days being by myself…there’s been quite a few moments when i debated whether or not to join the smokers into their ‘pleasurable’ and ‘relaxing’ ways. that combined with seeing cigarette packs everywhere. for those of you who are not aware, canada decided to ‘hide’ the cigarette packs from view, thus you don’t see them in stores; even though you can buy them. thus, in copenhagen and munich airports, those were some of the first things that jumped out at me.

well it’s about 12pm on tuesday, and i spent the night at a hotel…tried to sleep but considering i went to bed at roughly 2pm vancouver time that wasn’t gonna happen without a fight. woke up with a head ache (that has yet to pass) around 6:30am local time. enjoyed the delicious breakfast offered by the hotel and eventually made my way to the airport. coming in the night before, had to put up with a plane delay. as soon as i stepped on the plane, found my seat and closed my eyes with the ipod blasting away. i recall waking up at some point, looking outside, it was dark. couldn’t tell if we were flying or still standing in copenhagen. didn’t quite bother to look at the time and closed my eyes yet again. i remember landing. grabbed a taxi to the hotel and made it to the room. small and cozy, pictures to follow at some point. the best thing of the room was the bathroom floor (no, stop thinking of the shaggy song). why? it was the only place in the room that was heated. the heating in the bathroom was done through the floor, however i failed to find a control for the heat in the room.

once i returned from breakfast i realized the extent of my ‘intelligence’ the night before. assuming that the door to the room is always looked from the outside, i never bothered checking. well, the door has to be locked from the inside with the key. if not, the door can be opened (duh!) and essentially anyone can visit. well i slept the night, went to breakfast, left my laptop, ipod and the rest of my stuff in the room with the door unlocked through the night and during breakfast. got to the airport with ‘all’ my stuff from what i can see, and started looking for tarom’s office. i’m sure no pun was intended given tarom’s office in the airport is placed between a turkish airline office and another middle eastern country.

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ISOI part 2b

Posted by  on 16 December 2008, 6:19 am

memoirs of copenhagen, at my sister’s request. visited the airport back in the summer. spend a week in this amazing city during the indoor air 08 conference. landing brought back memories of the summer visit. over-paying for two hot dogs and a can of pepsi. trying to figure out what the time on the tickets for the train meant. taking public transit to reach downtown copenhagen. surprised by the amount of bikes on the streets.

knowing i have 5 hours of waiting until my flight to munich departs, i decided to calmly wait on my seat until the plane clears. good thought, only when i got up and tried to put my coat on my ring falls between the seats. thus, i managed to ensure i’m the last person to get off the plane. a nice stewardess came to my aid and found my ring. off the plane and into the line-up. check-up of luggage and personal belongings. at least the danish won’t make me take off my shoes. i guess they do appreciate a nice clean indoor air environment, given i had my shoes for approximately 24 hours by that point. all goes well, slow, but well. first stop, duty-free shop. after which, the search for a plug begins.

given it’s about 3.5 hours prior to departure, my flight is not on any of the screens. no idea as to which gate i’m supposed to look for. given no free wifi was available, i decided to start on foot and look for the gate to munich. the search took me through the main section of ‘duty-free’ shops, which included various brand name clothing stores, a display ferrari enzo (with a clear sign ‘please do not touch’), and chocolate stores. by the time gate B15 was found, the lack of sleep finally kicked in…the only thing i was looking for was a comfortable seat to try and relax a bit. the joy of the re-visit didn’t last for very long, the only thing i was thinking about was a nice bed.

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ISOI part 1

Posted by  on 16 December 2008, 6:18 am

as i’m writing this i have to suffer due to lack of free wi-fi in microsoft’s backyard. yes, i’m in seattle as i’m writing this, in a txt document rather than right into the blog itself, drinking out of the tasteless un-sweet white chocolate mocha from ‘seattle’s best coffee’. you’ve probably seen my rants about free wifi and how every place should have at least one option to log onto the internet. yes, for cheap bastards as yours truly. nothing to be ashamed off, but if starbucks can reverse its decision and once again offer free wifi because of loss of customers, why can’t it be offered everywhere else. hospitals in vancouver offer free wi-fi (hopefully I won’t get into to much trouble for divulging this one), some restaurants have finally joined in (yes thank you sammy j peppers), and other various places.

the first thing i should probably explain is what the four letters stand for, but i won’t. it’s not important what the letters stand for, it’s more or less what they mean together, whispered in the appropriate order, at the right time. the journey started on the morning of the 14th of december. for the first time in ‘way to long to remember’, vancouver was hit with snow storms and temperatures under -5C at night. wasn’t much prettier in the morning, snow falling, freezing temperature and the requirement to bus from downtown vancouver to seatac international. all sounds rather good, decided to take ‘quick coach lines’. not a bad decision, at first considering they allowed me to change my departure time from 10am to 7:45am once the snow warnings were in effect and they offer, are you ready for this, free wi-fi on their buses. safe to say that helped with what was to follow.

make it to the bus early enough to make sure i don’t rush, and try not to stress. what would you know, the streets of vancouver are not all cleared. keep in mind, friday was the first snow storm. the snow fall for sunday morning was announced…however vancouver just doesn’t learn. clean the snow…make life safer on the roads. anyhow, as you’d expect due to the uncleaned snow on half the roads the bus arrived at the stop roughly 15 minutes later than expected. bus driver was pretty nice however, a bit slow, but nice. once everyone is on board, luggage placed inside…we’re off to the races. i’m thinking…it’s only 15-20 minutes…my plane leaves in roughly 10 hours…i’m good to go. we drive less than 2 km. my ipod is blasting away…and the bus stops. it’s probably a stop, i continue to pay attention to my laptop…then i see the driver walk through the bus and sort of try to explain something…by the time i take my headphones out…i hear “we’ll either get a replacement bus, which takes about 35 minutes, or they’ll come fix it which should take 20 minutes’. and he leaves…i figured…well at least i have 10 hours…half an hour passes…nothing…45 minutes pass…nothing…the door to the bus is left open…the bus is not on…and it’s getting rather cold in the bus…after all outside…it was only roughly -1C. eventually the second bus shows up. the luggage gets moved…the passengers move as well…and we’re on our way. only about 1.5 hours late. we make it to the boarder…everybody off the bus!!! grab your belongings and proceed to get inspected…good part, our bus was the only one there…so the inspection took almost an hour.

as we get back on the bus, everyone sort of sits wherever there’s space. of course, there’s at least one person that has to interrogate someone (me) if the space they’re sitting in is the same one prior to the border cross. at which point i’m essentially responding with…my seat was also taken plus there’s no assigned seating…i guess she thought she was already aboard her flight to the bahamas. we make it to seatac…in one piece and with an empty laptop battery. being early has its advantages…check-in started almost 4 hours prior to takeoff (that’s right 3pm). first in line, got my bags checked…made it through security…had to ‘undress’…take my shoes off, belt off…good thing i managed to keep my jeans on. and now i’m sitting waiting for boarding…with my laptop connected to one of the only plugs i managed to see. gotta charge it up…the flight…she’s a long one…

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