Katy and I are back from Canada. The bags are mostly unpacked, the laundry mostly done, the cats are back home with us.
Trip was good. Lots of pictures.
News to come.
Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.
Tag: travel
Sometimes, people just rock!
I'm going to Tokyo for 10 days in early February. 6 days for work, 3 days for fun (and I lose a day for travel). I'm mentally preparing myself for one hell of a culture shock and I'm hoping I won't have too many of those lost-in-translation moments.
One thing that was worrying me a bit was that the language barrier would be difficult to breach – which could have nasty consequences for my many food allergies. However, the lovely people who are organizing the workshop have come to my aid and produced this:
????????????
?????????????????????????????
– ????, ?? (???OK), ??, ????
– ??????? (???)
– ????
– ?????????????
???????????
It means, roughly translated,
I have food allergies.
Can you please ensure that my meal does not contain any of the following items:
– lentil, beans (soy is OK), sesame seeds, nuts
– above-derived products (such as oil)
– garlic
– fresh apple strawberry tomato
Thank you.
Canada Redux – part 1
Finally a bit of time to write about the whole Canada trip. The epic begins on the 13th, where it took me 4 hours to get to Gatwick. My flight was at 4:30 in the afternoon but Katy dropped me off at Great Chesterford at 8 in the morning on her way to work. I didn't mind – I actually prefer to take my time and get to the airport well in advance. I just plug into my ipod and reader and zone out until it's time to board the plane.
I had two trains pass right in front of me at the station without stopping. There was a signalling fault and there were delays (these were already late trains). My 8:30 train arrived closer to 9:30, but what can you do. That's when I learned that there were engineering works at Tottenham Hale and the train wouldn't be calling there, but at Seven Sisters instead. Normally, I get off at TH and get straight on the Victoria line to Victoria station and get on the Gatwick Express. This time though, I wasn't sure enough of the stations on the tube line and didn't want to spend an hour waiting at Seven Sisters in case my hunch that it actually was on the right tube line was proven incorrect so I elected to bite the bullet, avoid the shortcut that normally saves me about 45 minutes and go straight to Liverpool station and get to Victoria station using the tube.
This turned out to be a big mistake. It took about an hour longer to get to Liverpool, and then an extra half hour for a circle line tube to finally show up. I still wasn't really fussed, cause I had ample time to get to Gatwick, but I was getting fed up of waiting for trains. I finally arrived at Victoria and had 15 minutes to wait for a Gatwick Express (of course, I'd just missed one). I went to buy some food at the M&S express and a cup of tea from a stall – where the dude was so slow that I almost managed to miss my train (I caught it, but at the price of spilling a lot of my very hot tea on my hand – I should sue Nero).
At this point, I am starting to relax as I am now on the last leg of the journey to the airport, and I have (most of) a cup of tea. Something bad had to happen then. I mean, come on…. And it did, when the ticket lady told me that my travel card was not valid on the Gatwick Express. Now let me say that Katy and I have previously used the exact same travel card on the Express and had had it confirmed from the GE ticket counter that it was valid. But apparently it's not. I must have looked dejected enough that the nice lady only charged me for a ticket upgrade instead of a full ticket.
I finally arrive at Gatwick to learn that my flight has been delayed for 2 hours because of a mechanical failure on the original plane. They're having a replacement one flown down from Manchester.
Nothing else really important to note happened that day. I passed security, went window shopping, drank tea and waited for my flight. The flight itself was boring and uneventful. I watched Oceans 13 (and was glad that I didn't go see it in the cinemas – they managed to make Al Pacino sound lame!!!). Cleared customs without a problem and got my bags. The folksies were waiting to pick me up in Ottawa and we drove to their place, where I spent the first two days getting over my jet lag, which seemed nastier than usual.
On Saturday, I took the bus to Montreal to spend a few days with the boys and taking case of some business. I met up with Michel near the old Forum and we spent most of the afternoon shopping for stuff that I wanted to bring back with me (a new backpack cause my old one was dead, some DVDs that are not out yet in region 2 and flannel sheets that for some reason are impossible to find in the UK). The backpack was an adventure in itself, because Future Shop now sucks the big puss-filled ass.
The new layouts of the store is awful and it's impossible to find somebody willing to help. I wanted a Targus backpack because I know they're solid. My old one, though now literally falling apart at the seams, was bruised and battered through years of solid wear and tear. Future Shop apparently only carried a generic knock-off brand but then we found something really weird. Two identical bags – one branded Targus, one branded the no-name brand. Guess which one I wanted. Guess which one didn't have a price sticker. Guess which one I took anyway. Guess how many trips the sales clerk had to make through the busy store to get me the bag I wanted…
The day ended well though, cause we went for a pint at Hurleys and then really, really, REALLY excellent sushi at Bishoku. I have a really soft spot for the folks who run the restaurant. I haven't been a regular client there since I moved to the UK, more than 2 years ago but I try and go there every time I'm in Canada. Every time Michel goes there, they ask about me.
When I went there and they noticed that Katy wasn't with me, they were sad. I told them we'd be back at xmas and they said “when you come next time, we'll give her ice cream”‡. I finally asked them why they always ask for news about me and it seems that when they bought the restaurant a few years ago, Michel and I were some of their first regular customers. It seems we made a good impression :) Anyway, the sushi was excellent – it's still the best I've ever had and is the yardstick by which I measure every sushi restaurant – and the company was good. I took a cab to go to POs (he was nice enough to offer his guest bedroom for a few nights) and chatted over a few ciggies then went to bed.
On Sunday, I had brunch with Sara and Em and then went to see Nat's new house. I was pleasantly surprised by it – it's nice and bigger than it looks from the outside. I'd made plans the night before to go have dinner with Michel, Isabelle and Danielle (Michel's sister – which it turned out I hadn't seen in over 7 years). Dinner was fun and there was much laughing. Isabelle had bought mussels for dinner, but they seemed a bit dodgy so we ended up chucking them all in the bin and ordered in some St-Hubert :) It still tastes the same.
Monday was another busy day, because I wanted to go to the old port for some tea at Ming Tao Xuan and get a drop-chain necklace for Katy from the jewelers at Marche Bonsecours. Tea was good but I was a bit disappointed that it didn't taste as great as I remembered it :( I got a nice tea set though. The jewelers were also a let down because their stuff was all much of a muchness. I didn't see what I was looking for, and didn't see anything really leaping out at me saying “buy me, I'm original”. I went to see Bernard, my financial planner to go over some paperwork and then went back to the old port to try my luck at some jewelers at the Marche des Artisans. No joy. Got back to POs and went to buy some curry-making supplies as I'd offered to cook for the boys before the game night. I discovered that I missed Tesco…
Boy's night went ok, but I was disappointed that a lot of people just didn't show up. PO had sent an email weeks before, and a reminder days before, and yet another on the day. Seb, Vincent and Simon just didn't come, nor did they give any sign of life. That hurt a bit. Still, it was a fun night. I discovered a new card game called Bang! and we played a few games and chatted over beer and ciggies.
I took the bus Tuesday morning back to Ottawa and spent the rest of my time in Canada at the folks' place. We went shopping on Wednesday for some new suitcases, weird and wacky stuff from the dollar store for Katy and a broadband solution for my dad's computer. I got two really nice Samsonite individual-sized suitcases for about £65 – bargain.
Thursday was lets-get-Dad-connected-to-the-Internet day. We bought a new-fangled WiMax wireless broadband modem from Bell. It's the only way they can get broadband but the upside is that it works and is roughly 80 times faster than their previous connection speed :) The only room in the house that gets decent signal is their bedroom, so we had to go back into town to get a wifi router and card for the desktop computer. Got that hooked up and secured (a VERY big concern for my dear papa) and then spent roughly 6 hours trying to reach somebody at their 24/7 tech support helpline to activate the damn account. We did, it works, they are happy. Life is good. The service was stable for the whole time I was there, so touch wood it should be good. There was only one small speed bump that required another (useless, as it turned out) 2 hour phone call to tech support but I found the problem the next day and worked some tech magic for it to not happen again.
My sister and the sprog arrived the next day and there was drama over the weekend, which I will write about at a later time cause now I'm tired and lunch is over so I need to get some work done.
‡ Katy loves their deep-fried ice cream dessert :)
I'm HooOOoOOOOOOoOOOmmMMMmMmMEeeEEeeE!!!1!
I've made it back home in one piece, albeit a f'n tired one. Lots to write about, but not now. Now? Shower. Then bed. BED!
I've been on the go for the last 13 hours straight with only about an hour's sleep at the beginning, if that. Then there was Gatwick. I hate Gatwick. And Tottenham Hale. Which is not that much better. And then home!!!!!!!!!!
I've come to a profound realization. Canada is a nice place to visit, but it's no longer home. Home is where my bed is. Home is where my cat is. Home is, most of all, where my wife is.
On that note, duckie to you all!
Queing, grumbling and waiting – the british way of life
I'm back in BraaaaaTisLAVA (don't ask, long inside joke) and I have an hour to kill before my flight. Interestingly, there's free, open wi-fi. I don't really dare log into anything sensitive, but livejournal should be a safe bet, or so we hope. My firewall and virus scanner should stop anything too intrusive.
I'm glad the conference is done and over. It was interesting, but I think I'll limit my conference attendances to Javapolis and other tech-related ones. The scientific ones just have way too much waffle and I'm realizing that I'm just not as interested in it as I used to be. I'm more interested in ways to store, manipulate and handle data as to having long talks about What-It-All-Means.
We had a few hours to spare in Vienna in the afternoon, so I managed to convince a few people to go to the Haus Der Musik, an interactive music museum. It was a nice send-off from Vienna. Had one final ice cream cone on the way back to the hotel to pick up the bags and we headed to the bus stop where we'd be taking the shuttle to Slovakia. There was already quite a crowd of people trying to get on the bus. Thank god we had pre-booked seating. They actually checked my passport this time at the Slovak-Austrian border, but they barely glanced at it. At times, I really, really like travelling with a Canadian passport. It's nice that most countries like us.
If all goes well, I should be getting home at 1:30 or so. I've realized that I've done something daft and forgotten my earplugs in the hotel (at least, I think they're there – they might be in my shaving kit). End result is that they're not in my bag. This would normally be bad bug I've recharged my ipod and my earbuds will block out most of the plane noise.
I'm looking forward to being home and the feeling of normalcy it entails. To quote a co-worker, “I need a bit of TLC”.
A bit of a wrap-up
The conference is almost over. People are packing up the stands. The general consensus is that it was an ok meeting, but people are looking forward to going home.
The last 2 days have been better than the first two – mostly since I've been doing things on my own agenda. On monday night, I had a nice meal at Cantinetta Antinori with Judith, a former student that was at the EBI about a year ago. She didn't have any plans and decided to join me at the last minute. The food was lovely and the wine list was impressive. We shared a starter of beef carpaccio with parmesan and I had homemade pasta stuffed with ricotta covered in a thyme and lemon sauce. I think I offended the waiter by having a glass of really good Montepulciano but following it with a glass of rose :) Screw him. Good wine is what you like to drink, I say. We had some ice cream from the bajillion gelato stands in the inner ring and went walkabout, taking pictures at a leisurely pace.
Last night was the conference dinner, which I skipped in favour of having dinner with Tia at Firenze Enoteca. Even though the restaurant is rated higher than the cantina, the food was better at the other place. I had shrimp risotto, which was a bit spoiled by having too many cherry tomatoes. All in all, it was ok though. The old truism that I've discovered with Michel about italian restaurants still stands. The better the food, the worse the coffee. I had espresso at both places, and it was bad at both places… Ah well. Tia and I spent a nice evening chatting and walking about. I bought some postcards that I still need to write and send. She suggested we go to a little bar and listen to some live music near her apartment. When we got there, it was so hot in the basement that there was nobody there. The band decided that they wouldn't play the set so we left and then we ended up at the outdoor film festival, watching a really fucked up movie about … I'm not too sure about, but it involved two people singing opera in french about moving to Paris and living together (the together part being really, really, REALLY important). And then the keystone cops showed up. And they sang some more. It made my brain hurt.
The plan for today involves finishing up the conference and… waiting. The shuttle to Bratislava is at 6pm and the flight is at 9:30 (or thereabouts). We're already checked out of the hotel so there's not a lot to do. Some people are thinking of going to the Museum of Music and kill time there. Sounds like an interesting plan.
I managed to get proper grown-up food today
I had a lovely piece of fish with grilled peppers today. This makes a large improvement over yesterday, where I ate nothing. Well, a kit kat and a squished sausage roll don't count.
Dinner didn't fare any better, which *really* pissed me off. I'll get to that in a bit. The longer I'm at this conference, the less I like it. The venue is horribly organized. I had to stand in front of my poster for 1.5 hours last night during the reception. Imagine a three-sided building. There are posters on all 3 sides. There are three bars. Only one is open, where there is booze and copious amounts of free food. Guess where most of the crowd hung out. Now imagine that my poster is diametrically opposite the bar. Yeah. I was thrilled that I actually had a few people who were genuinely interested in the poster. It's been the only good thing about the conference so far.
The plan was to go to the hotel and drop our bags off, then head into town go to eat at a cafe near the cathedral. Unfortunately, the plan morphed along the way and we ended up going to an outdoor markt near the Rathaus that serves ethnic food. By this, I mean paella, kebabs, curries, greek food, spanish tapas and burgers. You know, all the sort of food that'll kill me. People were going “we're sure you'll be able to find something you can eat”. Yeah. Like I came all the way to Vienna to eat a fucking burger (no offence to burger lovers).
One guy was actually really good about it, going to stand to stand with me, but I just didn't feel comfortable with the whole concept of street food. I'm sure it's really good, but when it can cause you severe discomfort to say the least… I just didn't want to trust it. Call me paranoid, call me silly. In the end, I told them I'd go eat something at a sit-down place I'd try to find near the cathedral and get back to them for drinks.
Unfortunately, I managed to get myself hopelessly lost (my map was in my bag, which had been left at the hotel). I know I have all the navigational aptitudes of a drunken carrier pigeon. I've never claimed otherwise. Walking in a new city at night? Not my bestest idea. In the end, I managed to get myself at the right place, but I was so stressed out about the whole thing that I wasn't really hungry anymore. Also, it was now 10pm, and the concept of a meal was no longer so appealing. I just headed back to the hotel and spent a while talking to Katy. I tried texting the guys to let them know, but on top of everything else, my phone ran out of credit.
Another sign that my hotel is shit: when I got there, I wanted nothing better than a pot of hot water to make myself some tea in my room while talking to Katy. They had no teapots. I had to pay 3 euro to get a sodding cup of bad tea and burnt myself bringing it to the room.
Today is a better day. I made myself a few ham and cheese sandwiches from the breakfast buffet and snuck them in my bag in case lunch went pear-shaped. Turns out they were not needed, which is a nice plus. Later on today, I will go walking in Vienna on my own, in daylight, with maps to go see the sights *I* want to see and do the things *I* want to do. Antisocial much? At this point, I don't give a damn.
Edit: I've already made reservations to a lovely-sounding Italian restaurant tonight. Can't wait :)
I'm meeeeeeeelting!
I'm not build for this weather and I'm not a happy camper. Heck, I'm just not a happy camper in general at the minute. Let's recap.
I got up at 2:45am Saturday morning to get ready for my 3:30 pick up to get to Stansted. I was running on automatic, because what little sleep I got was broken up by waking every 30 minutes or so cause I didn't want to sleep through my alarm. At 2am, I gave up and spent a half hour petting the cat that had climbed up on my chest and was purring away quite contently (he's been getting more affectionate since we put a collar on him, go figure).
The flight was perfectly normal by Ryanair standards and, aside from a bit of drama when my poster tube fell off the luggage belt on the wrong side of the luggage pick-up area, the bus trip to Vienna from Bratislava was uneventful. We took the tube to the hotel and that's when we knew we were going to be in for a bumpy ride.
The rooms were a sauna. There was no AC and no wind circulation. My room faces the afternoon sun and is just above a busy street. Joy. The heat was so bad that I had to open a few windows. People who know me will realize just how bad it was. To make matters worse, although there is wireless internet at the hotel, apparently my room is one of the few that gets no reception. Oy.
Anyway. We got some euro and some sunscreen to protect my pasty white skin and headed out on walkabout. It was a good pootle, but it was just too warm. The best bit of that afternoon was having an ice cream cone (in a proper cone, that disintegrates in your mouth as soon as you bite on it). The heat got the better of me though, cause I started getting a bit woozy. Went back to the hotel and had a cool shower and a nap, but I elected not to go out to the opening reception. I didn't feel all that grand by then so I had Katy call me and then went to bed. From what I hear though, it was nice and then people went out to drink afterwards. There are a few places that I want to go see for myself when it's cooler, so I'll keep note and play hookie at some point during the conference.
We're there now. I don't like the layout of the place – it's on 3 levels of the venue and it's a real maze to get from point A to point B. The posters are on 2 levels, which means that since I'm in a back corner, I don't expect to get a lot of visitors…
I'm also pissed off about lunch and will be putting in a formal complaint with the organizers. When I registered, there was a specific form entry for dietary requirements and food allergies. I though to myself, yay, I might be able to finally have a proper lunch at one of these things. Of course not, silly boy. I just asked the catering staff to make sure (I had to use my multi-lingual “I'm going to die if I eat any of the following… ” card) and they said that there was garlic in everything. So yeah. NO SOUP FOR YOU! Bastards.
It's not so bad. I can have a good breakfast at the hotel and I can have nibbles during the coffee breaks (that marbled cake is nice! but you can't live on cake alone – no matter what some people might think). I also came prepared a bit and have some nibbles of my own. It's always the case though. My diet goes to shit when I'm on conferences… I'll go back living off salads when I get back home.
Geneva pictures are finally up
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/geneva_jun_2007/
Peeeectures!
Katy bullied me into taking two days off last week so we went on a pair of day trips, one to Cadbury World and another to Hunstanton seaside.
Cadbury world was a childhood fantasy for Katy and was actually more fun than I thought it would be – once we managed to lose the 5 busload of hyped-up ADHD kids. We came back with a bit more than a kilo of chocolate and a stuffed parrot for Katy. I almost bought a 5kg bar of dairy milk, but I couldn't justify it. It would have gone bad before we'd have been able to eat it all without getting sick. Figure that one square of the bar is the equivalent of 3 normal dairy milk bars…
Our second trip was to the seaside, via Norfolk Lavender, a huuuuuge lavender farm. Hunstanton isn't the nicest of seasides. It looks a bit old. It probably didn't help that it wasn't completely open when we got there, but the bits that were were less than impressive. Southwold is nicer for a non-commercial seaside and Yarmouth is nicer for a commercial one. Still, we saw otters being fed and the beach itself was nice. The sea was completely calm and the sky was the same colour as the water, so both were indistinguisheable from each other.
The cliffs were also very cool. Apparently, they're a great source for fossils. As we were walking along the beach, we came across a rather unusual sight. An old dude was working at the base of the cliffs, apparently sorting out the fallen rocks into colour-coded piles. We didn't ask why; we figured he was probably bored and it took him out of the house.
The tide as out and had left tons of boulders covered in seaweed. Very funky indeed. The day itself was a bit overcast, but the sun was trying to shine through. I still managed to get a bit of a sunburn on my arms.
It was nice to spend some quiet time with the girl though :)
More pictures online at:
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/hunstanton_may_2007/
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/cadbury_world_may_2007/