Tag: travel

HUPO 2008 – Day 2

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I woke up with a mild hangover this morning, courtesy of Amsterdam’s finest. The construction noises didn’t help either. Breakfast was, if possible, even worse than yesterday and I didn’t stop burping it until close to noon.

Michel and Isabelle dropped their luggage off in my room while we went for a canal cruise this morning. It was a nice, easy way to wake up and then we parted ways. They picked up their luggage and took the train to Rotterdam to continue on their merry holidaymaker ways and I took the tram to the conference to see all the fun I’d been missing there.

Apparently the food here is horrible too (though I had no plans to sample it). I chatted a bit with the booth folk, uploaded my presentation to the speakers’ presentation system and then took in the poster sessions and the exhibitor hall. A few posters caught my eye and I found out that a company working in Victoria is planning a massive hiring spurt for software developers so I could have a job in Canada in the next few months if I wanted one. I’ll have to keep them in mind when my contract is up because, were I to come back to Canada post-EBI, the two places that I’d consider are Montreal and BC. The exhibitor booth is shockingly barren of good schwag. Everybody is only giving away cheap-looking pens. T-shirts, people, t-shirts! My preferred conference remains Javapolis, but I don’t think Ben will allow me to attend this year (and it was my turn on the rota too!)

The plan for tonight is to be a good boy. I’m going to go grab a bagel from the shop I found yesterday and then head back to the hotel. I want to go over my talk a few times and have an early night.

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HUPO 2008 – Day 1

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The conference program held nothing of interest for me and Michel and Isabelle – who I had not seen in ages – were in town. So I didn’t go to the conference and made the tactical decision to waste my time with fun friends instead of wasting my time trying to not fall asleep in a dark auditorium listening to recycled keynote lectures. We shall speak of this no more.

I woke up to a very noisy hotel room. I’d always been led to believe that Ibis hotels were good. Hopefully, this is the one exception that proves the rule. To put it bluntly, this Ibis Amsterdam Central has no redeeming features except that it’s close to the train station and that the rooms have 4 walls and a bed. Right now, the hotel is a construction site because planned renovations are taking longer than expected. I woke up to the pleasant noise of an impact hammer and various drills. The breakfast buffet has to be one of the worst hotel breakfasts I’ve ever had the displeasure to have. The “eggs” are so bland that the amount of salt and pepper needed to add some taste to them is frightening. They would also make good wallpaper paste. There is no bacon. Let me repeat this. There is no bacon. This might be very North Americal of me, but THERE IS NO BACON. This is a crime against humanity. Ok, so I exaggerate a bit, but it doesn’t change the fact that the decor is cafeteria-chic and looks onto train tracks and that the food is even less appealing than the decor. Like the rats from Ratatouille say: “food is fuel”, so I managed to find some things to eat.

Michel and Isabelle were still a bit jetlagged so they said they’d catch up with me around noon-ish. I didn’t want to waste too much sunlight to I went to the Rijksmuseum. The Rembrandts are… stunning! I’d never really looked at one. The light, the detail, the vibrancy of them! Beautiful. Took my breath away. There were also some Vermeers (he painted The Girl with the Peal Earring – but that painting is in the Hague) that were impressive, but Rembrandt steals the show.

After that, I went to the Van Gogh museum to wait in the queue while Michel and Isabelle were en route. Amusing moment: two French tourists were waiting behind me. One said to the other: “everybody is so civilized. Everybody is waiting quietly and nobody is cutting in the queue”. The other replies; “we’re not in France here”. :D

Finally the dynamic duo arrived and we met up and chatted about silliness while we waited to get in. The Van Goghs were impressive, but less so than the Rembrandts. What was impressive is the sheer amount of them. Pictures I’d only seen in books, not two feet away from my nose with only a little metal rail separating us. I didn’t know that old Vincent had had an Oriental period where he tried to replicate the Japanese woodblock print style. I bought a really cool poster of one of those.

We went to a “diamond museum” afterwards which was one part small, tacky exhibit room and nine parts large, tacky shopping area. The stuff was not particularly nice and bloody expensive. We went walkies after that with no real aim in sight.

Isabelle is an even bigger shutterbug than I am! She’s always snapping away at random things. The memory card on her camera is rated for a few thousand pictures and I’m certain that she’ll fill it in before the end of their trip. She kept telling Michel to “act natural” when she wanted to pose a scene with him in it :)

We had tea and lunch at a little bagel shop and then we went walking along the canals and in the flower market. Isabelle kept saying “photo opportunity” but the first time she said that, Michel heard “hippopotame chauve” which, translated, means “bald hippopotamus”. We kept teasing him about it. The weather was off and on. Raining a bit then a bit of sun, then more drizzle. Lather, rinse, repeat.

We went walking in the red light district. In daylight, it’s not really a pleasant sight. The hookers are past their sell-by dates and the whole area is grimy. Isabelle waned shortly after to she went back to her hotel while Michel and I made plans to sample some of Amsterdam’s finest, have dinner then see the red light in hopefully better light (when darkness would hide the worst of the grime).

The coffee shops are very generous in their portions and we discovered tat Amsterdam’s finest is potent as hell! We sat on the banks of the Gentlemens’ canal and shared a doobie. Now granted, it was a big doobie and had no tobacco in it to cut things down, but still. da-yum! I hadn’t been that stoned in years! We managed to fight back the giggles and had dinner in a nice steakhouse near Rembrandtplein.

Even though the night-shift of hookers in the red light is of better stock than the day-shift, it still leaves something to be desired. If I’d been single and carefree, there would have been only three or four ladies of negotiable affection that would have tempted my fancy in the dozens and dozens that we saw. The district is also packed with drunks, dopeheads, pickpockets and generally smelly and unpleasant tourists. We didn’t linger. Michel hailed a cab and dropped my off at my hotel on the way to his.

I talked with Katy on the phone, watched the olympic highlights and went to sleep.

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HUPO 2008 – Day minus 1 (addendum)

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It occurs to me that I am traveling with not one, not two, but three stuffed toys in backpack. This is two more than usual:

You see, one Bobbles always lives in my backpack. He likes it there and has moved in permanently. One Bobbles is for Isabelle, cause Bobbles rocks and she is now converted to the cause of the blue owl. Parsley, Katy’s lion, must follow me in all my Katy-less travels. He keeps an eye on me to make sure I don’t get myself into trouble (or so I’ve been told).

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The travel diary of Bobble, the little blue owl.

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Our pictures from Canada are online at http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/bobbles_canada_may2008/.

You’ll notice a recurrent theme. As we were packing our bags prior to leaving, we realized that a small plush Bobble the little blue owl had been living in my backpack for close to a year now. How could we be so cruel as to evict him from his home? We couldn’t, so we took him with us and cataloged his many adventures.

It was quite astonishing to see where we managed to make him end up. He was an instant hit with everybody that interacted with him. I was shameless in trying to get him anywhere I could (Katy was mortified on more than one occasion). My motto was if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Because of this, we managed to get him:

Never underestimate the power of the owl! We got some pictures that still manage to crack us up! All in all, Bobble had a great trip, ate waaaaay too much for such a little blue owl that he is and tried to kill himself with chocolate on more than one occasion.

Having said that though, he was very tired at the end of the trip and was glad to be back home.

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Sometimes, people just rock!

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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.

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Canada Redux – part 1

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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 :)

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I'm HooOOoOOOOOOoOOOmmMMMmMmMEeeEEeeE!!!1!

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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!

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Queing, grumbling and waiting – the british way of life

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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”.

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A bit of a wrap-up

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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.

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