Europe 2007 Trip
Each year, the Fuqua School of Business holds an annual retreat somewhere in the world, to discuss the world business climate. For 2007, the retreat was held in Venice, Italy, and the guest speaker was Bob Winkler, our professor of statistics for the GEMBA program. Plus, this was going to be the likely place where I will reconnect with some GEMBA classmates.
I also wanted to visit Moscow, and see some friends there. This became the core purpose of my trip. Once I was certain I could afford the trip (based on my tax returns and employment status) I looked into getting frequent flier tickets. My preferred dates were to fly out on June 21 and to return on July 3. Booking as late as I did, I ended up with an outbound flight on June 19 and a return on July 11. So, I added a stop in Rome, and decided to return to Prague, where my photography was a disaster in 2003 due to a film failure, and extend my time in London.
The biggest trip preparation headache turned out to be the Russian consulate. They declined my initial visa application, claiming my passport was "too worn." The real reason was rising tension between the Bush Administration and the Putin Administration. I ended up having to get a new passport and then applying for an expedited Russian visa. That was finally all sorted out about ten days before I was to leave. I also made great use of www.kayak.com to find the least expensive air fares and hotels of a reasonable standard, to help cut costs. While I won't definitively endorse the site until after I judge the quality of the rooms, I will give it a partial endorsement for the speed and depth of the searches.
I also made the necessary arrangements to tend to my cat, Gremalkin. My friend Alan Horn will be caring for him while I am away. Since my stove had a short circuit a couple days before I was to leave, he'll also have to host a repair shop visit. We went out for pizza on the evening before I was to leave.
Alan picked me up at 5AM for my 7AM flight to Newark. The ticket was a little grotesque, as I had a 6.5 hour layover in Newark, but I did book business class for the trip across the Atlantic Ocean. After this, I'll only have about 360,000 miles left. I was bumped from my booked seat, 2B, to 4A, a window seat. I much prefer the aisle. The person in 2B was already boarded when they started boarding, and was a large man with extremely short hair... Clearly, I was bumped by an air marshal. Row 4 was the back row, and the seats had a limited recline. I listened to my iPod for most of the trip; we arrived on time in Newark. I skipped most of the meal service, eating only a croissant.
This was because I planned around the long layover, and took the train into New York City for a pastrami sandwich. The train was bloody expensive, $15 each way, but I met one of my classmates, and good friend, David Roberts. He's relocated back from Miami to New York City, and is happier for it. I managed to eat the whole sandwich... I'll admit, though, that David and I had to split the order of fries. It was good to see him and catch up with him, as he's not going to be able to attend Venice.
On returning to the airport, I was able to spend some time in the lounge. It was extremely hot and humid in the city, so I ended up drinking a lot of water. I even managed to get a short cat nap in the lounge, waiting to board my flight. They changed the gate for my flight while I was in the lounge, to a distant gate. No worries, I had time, and boarded. The person in the seat next to me was a trial lawyer, and we had a short discussion before the plane pulled away from the gate.
We were supposed to have a 7 hour flight, and we managed to leave the gate on time, but a storm was coming in from the west, and we were trying to beat it out. We were not successful; when we were very close to taking off, air traffic control closed the airport for the thunderstorm to pass. We ended up leaving two hours late. While sitting on the ground, I reclined and got some sleep. I had to wake up to put the seat up straight for takeoff, but as the plane passed 10,000 feet, I put the seat back, and I slept for about four hours. All told, I had about five and a half hours of sleep when we landed in London Gatwick.
It may be hard to believe, but they've made the airport even less likable; we were sent to the north terminal, where we cleared immigration and claimed luggage, but it was still about 20 minutes of walking and monorail until I reached the Gatwick train station. The train is now £14.90 one way; welcome to expensive London. The taxi from Victoria to near Paddington was another £8. I dropped off my luggage and got a lunch of a doner kebab at what used to be the Kebab Machine near King's Cross. It is the same kebab shop, but with a different name. At least that was affordable. I got a new cell phone number for the UK, and put in some money.
I chose to surprise Richard at work - I brought him a pair of housewarming gifts that were fragile, and instead of risking them on flights and trains, I asked him to hold on to them for me until I returned in a couple weeks. We had a short chat catching up, and I went back to my hotel to get my room. It was a little small, even by London standards, on a landing between floors. It was maybe 60 square feet in size, as I had no floor space next to the bed after I put down my bag.
Hey, all I needed was a bed.
My last stop of the day in London was to visit Brick Lane for a curry. I went to Muhib, and I ordered a lamb vindaloo. (I don't know why, but Word flags "vindaloo" as a misspelled word.) I also ordered a papadom, onion bhaji, and pullao rice. The vindaloo was a regular hot vindaloo, unlike a vindaloo in the United States that is fairly mild. All told, dinner was a whopping £12! A reasonable price!
Back to the hotel for a hot shower and bed... I discovered that my shampoo opened in the plastic bag, that's why I pack the shampoo in a plastic bag so the shampoo wasn't all over all my clothes.
I had to wake up very early, to get a taxi at 3:25AM to Heathrow. I was flying coach to Moscow, via Vienna, on Austrian Airlines. The flight departed at 6:15AM. I waited in line to check in for close to an hour, as it was a slow process impeded by poor queue management on the part of Austrian Airlines. They also did not accept my bag through the normal system, and instead insisted I take it to a different baggage check area because it was 23 kilos. (This weight was a little surprising, as my bag was 22 kilos in San Francisco, and I took out two gifts that should have weighed more than the sweat that soaked into my tee shirt.)
Then I had to wait in a very long line for the X-ray machines; this line was probably 1500 feet long. At least it moved quickly. Then the X-ray machines, immigration, and the walk to the gate. I got in line for check in at 4AM, and it was 5:50 AM when I finally reached the gate. Heathslow indeed!
Then, the airplane had the great joy of sitting on the ground at Heathrow waiting for an air traffic control stop at Vienna to pass. When the flight took off, just to add to the pleasure of the experience, the person in front of me reclined so his head was about nine inches away from me. Of course, my seat could not recline, for some reason.
There's a rule in air travel, when you have a long connection, the arrival gate and the departure gate are next to each other. When you have a short connection, they are on opposite sides of the airport. In this case, I had to go through Austrian immigration, and then through a security check point, then through Austrian emigration, and then to the gate, and then through another security check point where I had to remove my belt... My trousers nearly fell off. Finally, was allowed to board.
This flight was not full, and they served an OK lunch, herbed chicken breast with mashed potatoes and chocolate mousse. There was no one sitting in my row, so I could stretch out a bit and relax after the meal.
All text and images are © Copyright 2007 James C. Armstrong, Jr.