My last leg of the Europe trip finished in London. It was a quick stop, only one day. I flew in direct from Geneva into Heathrow. It was a pretty straight forward flight, although it was slightly delayed. I ended up landing in London around 10:30am, and was about 1 hour from the hotel where I was going to stay. I took the Underground to the hotel, which was easy to do. However I have two comments:
1 - I was not able to get on a single train which would take me directly to my stop, even though I was on the line that was going to my stop. So I would make it about half way, then have to get off the train and get on the next train. Not something that happens in Chicago often, but I ran 100% on this in London.
2 - When going to Knightsbridge at Hyde Park, be prepared to be on a crammed train, even at 11am. It might have just been because of the holidays, but it was crammed pack and I had luggage to wrestle with.
Because the rest of the story will touch on too much work, I won't really take this story much further. Although I will say I stayed at a magnificent hotel that was extremely luxurious, and everyone there was wonderful. The hotel upgraded my room to an amazing room, and I had a fantastic dinner at the hotel. I look forward to going back. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much outside the hotel, but I'll be back in time.
My trip home was fairly uneventful, although I had hoped I would get a bump by chance on my big flight home, but no luck. I flew from London to Frankfurt, then to Chicago. I thought that last flight was never going to end, but eventually to my relief it did. Customs was quick to get through, then I grabbed a cab home. However home wouldn't last long as it was Christmas! The next morning Heather and I were off to Indianapolis to begin the holidays.
I need to gather my photos and stories from the holidays, but there will be another post. Until then...
Monday, December 31, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
European Tour
I am a little over half-way through my work related European tour so I thought I'd drop a note online. The tour is as follows:
Days 1-3 - Donegal, Ireland
Days 4-6 - Geneva, Switzerland
Day 7 - London, England
For the most part this trip is all about business, and I won't really be doing any site seeing. However that doesn't mean I won't take any pictures!
This trip is crazy as far as the number of planes I will be on. I will be on 9 airplanes when all said and done. Most of them are related to getting to Donegal Ireland. I had to fly from Chicago, to London, to Dublin, to Sligo, then grab a rental car up to Donegal which is about an hour drive. It took me about 18 hours to get there! The next leg onto Geneva wasn't that different as I had to drive back to Sligo, fly to Dublin, to London, then to Geneva. There were direct flights from Dublin to Geneva, but unfortunately the flights from Sligo were limited so I landed after the last direct flight to Geneva was available. Fortunately the rest of the trip is more straight forward. I will fly directly to London tomorrow morning, then will fly back from London to Chicago via Frankfurt.
The first stop on this trip was Ireland. I seem to get a bit lucky when I come here as the rain tends to take a break when I arrive. Apparently it was raining for the last couple of weeks hard prior to my arrival. However when I was there it had stopped. The sky was still overcast, but things were dry. I was in Ireland for a work project that was taking place at Lough Eske. I have done a project with this hotel group before, and they have very (very) nice places. My last trip to Ireland was for one of their projects as well. Here is a shot of the entry of their hotel which is a castle built in 1866.
Lough Eske Castle, now the Solis Lough Eske Hotel
The grounds of this hotel are really nice as well. I was there as the hotel us just opening, so there is still a bit of work to be done on the grounds from the construction, but it will be really nice once completed.
Unfortunately Ireland was basically all work, so I don't have any great stories to tell. I went into the town of Donegal one night for a nice meal. However I didn't have my first Guinness until I was leaving Ireland at Dublin's airport between flights! I tried to talk my team who was onsite to go into town with me on my last night there so see some session music playing, but no luck they were all pretty tired by the time it was possible. I was tired too so it probably was the best decision.
Onto Switzerland. I have been to Zurich before with Heather during one of her business trips. However I have not been to Geneva. It is interesting because in Geneva everyone speaks French, when in Zurich there is more German spoken. Fortunately most people speak English so I can survive as I've realized my 4-5 years of French classes in school (15 years ago) apparently did not stick at all.
I can actually speak the small simple words ok, and recognize several words, at least enough to get the gist of things. However this morning was funny in my hotel room and I have a story there. The doorbell rang to the room and it was housekeeping. Since I was working out of the room that day I was still in the room. She started speaking very fast French to me, to what I assume was something along the lines of "can I clean your room now, or should I come back later" I couldn't tell for sure so I just told her "Je ne parle pas Francais. Parlez-vous Anglais?" She had a brief "ahhh" look to her, but then she went into several more sentences in French and once finished she looked at me for an answer. To which I replied "Je ne comprend pas" (I don't understand). Though I was telling her things in French, all phrases which indicate I do not speak French or understand it, that didn't stop her from starting up with more questions in French! Finally I resorted to the smile and shoulder shrug with arms up indicating "I don't know what you want". Seeming a little frustrated she left. I later had a meeting in the afternoon after which I came back and the room was cleaned, so things worked out I guess.
After later returning from my meeting though, ding dong, the doorbell again. This time the person had some small chocolates in hand and she asked me if I wanted my room turned down. Now I know this not because I understood what she said, but I know this is what she is there for as it was that time in the early evening. That conversation was more straight forward, all I had to say was no thank you.
Later that night I went out for dinner, and wanted to eat some fondue if possible. I searched online and found a place that was rated in the top restaurants in Geneva, and seemed to be priced ok so I went hunting it down. Unfortunately the area I thought I saw this place was in on the online map was completely off base. I walked up the lake side and couldn't find it at all, so I pulled out my mobile phone and google mapped it and found I was on the wrong side of the lake. So I had to walk around to the other side and ended up finding the place. I got there near 9pm, and unfortunately the place was packed and they couldn't seat me. Plus everyone in that place was smoking so I didn't mind looking for something else. I then walked the old city center streets looking for another restaurant that would look good and I got lucky and found another fondue place. So I ate there.
It was a nice and quiet restaurant. I ordered a plate of dried meats to start with along with a white wine, then some cheese fondue with bread and potatoes to dip. The table directly in front of me was most of my entertainment for the meal. There was a guy there with two girls. I believe they all worked together, and he was American and they had French accents. It looked like they were grabbing dinner after work as much of the conversation was about work things. For the most part they spoke English, but the guy could speak some French so they would jump between the two languages during the conversation. They were talking at one point about Chicago which I found to be funny. Little did they know at the table next to them was a Chicago resident. There isn't any real gossip to report on their conversation as I wasn't paying super close attention, but it was hard not to overhear things.
Below are a few pictures I took while walking to the restaurant. It's neat here at night as there are some decent light displays. Tomorrow I hope to see more of the city during the day and will try to get some more pictures.
This light display was interesting, a giant safety cone! What says Christmas more than a giant safety cone? Maybe this is a Festivus tradition? I didn't see the Festivus pole anywhere though...
Kind of trippy...
Days 1-3 - Donegal, Ireland
Days 4-6 - Geneva, Switzerland
Day 7 - London, England
For the most part this trip is all about business, and I won't really be doing any site seeing. However that doesn't mean I won't take any pictures!
This trip is crazy as far as the number of planes I will be on. I will be on 9 airplanes when all said and done. Most of them are related to getting to Donegal Ireland. I had to fly from Chicago, to London, to Dublin, to Sligo, then grab a rental car up to Donegal which is about an hour drive. It took me about 18 hours to get there! The next leg onto Geneva wasn't that different as I had to drive back to Sligo, fly to Dublin, to London, then to Geneva. There were direct flights from Dublin to Geneva, but unfortunately the flights from Sligo were limited so I landed after the last direct flight to Geneva was available. Fortunately the rest of the trip is more straight forward. I will fly directly to London tomorrow morning, then will fly back from London to Chicago via Frankfurt.
The first stop on this trip was Ireland. I seem to get a bit lucky when I come here as the rain tends to take a break when I arrive. Apparently it was raining for the last couple of weeks hard prior to my arrival. However when I was there it had stopped. The sky was still overcast, but things were dry. I was in Ireland for a work project that was taking place at Lough Eske. I have done a project with this hotel group before, and they have very (very) nice places. My last trip to Ireland was for one of their projects as well. Here is a shot of the entry of their hotel which is a castle built in 1866.
Lough Eske Castle, now the Solis Lough Eske HotelThe grounds of this hotel are really nice as well. I was there as the hotel us just opening, so there is still a bit of work to be done on the grounds from the construction, but it will be really nice once completed.
Unfortunately Ireland was basically all work, so I don't have any great stories to tell. I went into the town of Donegal one night for a nice meal. However I didn't have my first Guinness until I was leaving Ireland at Dublin's airport between flights! I tried to talk my team who was onsite to go into town with me on my last night there so see some session music playing, but no luck they were all pretty tired by the time it was possible. I was tired too so it probably was the best decision.
Onto Switzerland. I have been to Zurich before with Heather during one of her business trips. However I have not been to Geneva. It is interesting because in Geneva everyone speaks French, when in Zurich there is more German spoken. Fortunately most people speak English so I can survive as I've realized my 4-5 years of French classes in school (15 years ago) apparently did not stick at all.
I can actually speak the small simple words ok, and recognize several words, at least enough to get the gist of things. However this morning was funny in my hotel room and I have a story there. The doorbell rang to the room and it was housekeeping. Since I was working out of the room that day I was still in the room. She started speaking very fast French to me, to what I assume was something along the lines of "can I clean your room now, or should I come back later" I couldn't tell for sure so I just told her "Je ne parle pas Francais. Parlez-vous Anglais?" She had a brief "ahhh" look to her, but then she went into several more sentences in French and once finished she looked at me for an answer. To which I replied "Je ne comprend pas" (I don't understand). Though I was telling her things in French, all phrases which indicate I do not speak French or understand it, that didn't stop her from starting up with more questions in French! Finally I resorted to the smile and shoulder shrug with arms up indicating "I don't know what you want". Seeming a little frustrated she left. I later had a meeting in the afternoon after which I came back and the room was cleaned, so things worked out I guess.
After later returning from my meeting though, ding dong, the doorbell again. This time the person had some small chocolates in hand and she asked me if I wanted my room turned down. Now I know this not because I understood what she said, but I know this is what she is there for as it was that time in the early evening. That conversation was more straight forward, all I had to say was no thank you.
Later that night I went out for dinner, and wanted to eat some fondue if possible. I searched online and found a place that was rated in the top restaurants in Geneva, and seemed to be priced ok so I went hunting it down. Unfortunately the area I thought I saw this place was in on the online map was completely off base. I walked up the lake side and couldn't find it at all, so I pulled out my mobile phone and google mapped it and found I was on the wrong side of the lake. So I had to walk around to the other side and ended up finding the place. I got there near 9pm, and unfortunately the place was packed and they couldn't seat me. Plus everyone in that place was smoking so I didn't mind looking for something else. I then walked the old city center streets looking for another restaurant that would look good and I got lucky and found another fondue place. So I ate there.
It was a nice and quiet restaurant. I ordered a plate of dried meats to start with along with a white wine, then some cheese fondue with bread and potatoes to dip. The table directly in front of me was most of my entertainment for the meal. There was a guy there with two girls. I believe they all worked together, and he was American and they had French accents. It looked like they were grabbing dinner after work as much of the conversation was about work things. For the most part they spoke English, but the guy could speak some French so they would jump between the two languages during the conversation. They were talking at one point about Chicago which I found to be funny. Little did they know at the table next to them was a Chicago resident. There isn't any real gossip to report on their conversation as I wasn't paying super close attention, but it was hard not to overhear things.
Below are a few pictures I took while walking to the restaurant. It's neat here at night as there are some decent light displays. Tomorrow I hope to see more of the city during the day and will try to get some more pictures.
This light display was interesting, a giant safety cone! What says Christmas more than a giant safety cone? Maybe this is a Festivus tradition? I didn't see the Festivus pole anywhere though...
Kind of trippy...That's all for now. Next time I write I'll probably be back in the states recapping the last part of the visit. Until then...
Monday, December 03, 2007
Swiss Alps from Airplane
IMG_0670_2
Originally uploaded by jaspass
Hello Everyone,
Sorry it has been a while since posting, but we haven't really been anywhere of note since Italy. I have been to Daytona Beach, but it wasn't for Bike Week for anything like that, it was during the off-season for a work installation, so it was quiet. Heather has really only been to and from New York a few times for work as well. Next week though I will be traveling to Ireland, Geneva, and London. So I should have some pictures and tales to tell of travel then.
In the mean time I wanted to post this picture. I took this while heading back from Italy. We were flying from Rome to Munich on this flight, and this was the start of the Swiss Alps. Pretty cool huh? There are a few others I took which are on Flickr if you want to see them. Anyway, enjoy! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
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