Category: travel

I am a Professional!

The very last piece from my September trip. We walked around like complete tourists in Amsterdam and walked into this very touristy cheese shop, where literally everyone shops. We walked around the shop; I knew I wouldn’t be able to take anything with me, and I wouldn’t need any cheese before Thanksgiving, but Boris wanted to take something along. he liked one of the cheeses we had at the breakfast buffet in Jakarta, but we had no idea how it was called. So when the store associate asked us whether we needed any help, I first replied: thanks, we are just thinking, but then I decided to ask her. Boris started to describe the texture of the cheese he liked “as if it was dry, but not really dry,” and she immediately said: try this one on the opposite side – that should be the one.

We took the samples, and it was indeed the one. We thanked the associate, and she proudly said: I am a professional!

Then I decided to buy a set of cheese knives and forks (I thought I would bring it to Vlad and Dylon – I couldn’t possibly know this trip wouldn’t happen!). So I chose the set, and we started to check out when the same associate said: you know, they won’t allow this knife in the carry-on! The other two pieces are fine, but because of this third one you will have to check it in. Since I had a second flight the same day and didn’t want to risk getting out and getting back in, I had to put the set back on the shelf. I thanked her again (after all, she lost the sale on us, and we wouldn’t go after her if we figured this out in the airport!). She replied: I am a professional!

Indeed!

Google Knows!

The last story from my delayed flights saga. On September 12, when I already left my company’s London office and took Elizabeth line to Heathrow, I received a notification from Google (not British Airways): Flight XXX delayed arrival – 90 minutes. I don’t remember the exact verbiage, but something like that. Immediately, I looked at my BA boarding pass, but it didn’t show any delays. Since during my Chicago delay, Google was more accurate in estimating the delay time than AA, I thought that I will see the departure time change soon, but nothing came up. I arrived to the airport, waited for the departure in the lounge, still surprised that there was no delay announced, and finally proceeded to boarding. The flight was still perfectly on time, I took my seat, and soon, the boarding was complete.

Then came a usual announcement: “That’s your captain speaking,” and immediately after that he went off script: “So, you heard the thunder when you were boarding, right? Yea, it’s quite a storm going on, and now the traffic control want us to sit here and wait for the storm to clear. We will update you as soon as we know.”

Guess how much we were delayed? Yes, an hour and a half, and yes – just an arrival, not departure!

This left me wonder – how did Google know????

Flying Back And More Delays

The only flight that was on time for this trip was my flight back from Amsterdam to London. As for the final leg, I saw the announcement that my flight was going to be three hours delayed a day before, and I was only hoping it wouldn’t be another overnight delay.

That time, I had no option of going for a stroll in the city because I had my carry-on with me. Actually, if I had acted a little bit faster, I could have jumped on the previous flight to Chicago, but by the time I checked in with customer service, they were already boarding, so I decided – whatever!

It ended up spending another six hours staying in the lounge because there was already almost an hour gap between flights, but at least I was able to catch up on reading and blogging:)

The flight landed in Chicago at about 9 PM, and the good part of such a late arrival was that there were no lines at the border control, and also, there was no traffic on Sunday night, so I was at home at 10-20. I am proud of myself that I didn’t unpack but went to bed right away 😀

And More Amsterdam

I planned to spend an extra day in Amsterdam just to wander around without any particular plan. It would have been a great idea, except that this extra day was Saturday, and the streets were crowded beyond any imagination. Still, it was a nice and relatively warm day, and the city looked gorgeous. Boris wanted to take a boat tour “if it will work,” so we took the one which departed “in three minutes” from when we reached the boarding place.

Notice.s “seagull scarecrow” similar to the ones I saw in Helsinki
Seven bridges
Continue reading “And More Amsterdam” →

PG Day Lowlands

Friday, September 13 – the Pg Day Lowlands team was brave enough to have their first event scheduled on that day :). And it went really well! I liked a lot of things about it, and I definitely want to use some of them for PG Day Chicago, including the rule that Boriss Mejias mentioned about always leaving a space for a fith person to join a group of four. I also loved the idae of Sponsor Passports, which encoraged the participants to visit all sponsor tables.

I started this post three days ago, but never had time to finish because the moment I returned to work, I had no time for anything else. But now, I have pictures taken by a professional photographer, so instead of posting whatever pictures I took, I can post really high-quality ones. So now, there just a couple of mine left :).

Here are some of them (of cause, I am shamelessly posting the pictures of myself:))

Speakers gifts
Sponsors
It was a different photographer than two years ago, and Boris was not even in the front row, but still 🙂
Sponsor passports ready for drawing

Amsterdam

One more time visiting Amsterdam, and one more time taking the same pictures :). Interestingly, this blog started with one of our Amsterdam trips, so it is interesting to compare then and now. I should probably do it, but not today! I came back home last night, and I was in the office at 7 AM today, and life is going, an going, and running… So just pictures for now!

Hotel Jakarta

Just making sure I post everything about my trip before life gets intense! Boris also flew to Amsterdam on Thursday; we met at the airport and headed to Hotel Jakarta. I chose although it’s not the cheapest one because 1) there were no cheap hotels around 2) we’ve been there before and liked it 3)they allowed 24-hour cancellation with full refund.

Jakarta was great. I didn’t take as many pictures as I did two years ago, but some are below. The view from our room window was stunning day and night.

The gym still opens at seven, but when I said that I remember that precisely because I wish it would open earlier, they asked me “When do you want it to be open?” and on Friday, they opened it a half-hour earlier, just enough for me to exercise and have breakfast and be in time for the conference.

On Thursday, we were planning to attend the local meetup, but both our flights were delayed (yes, that’s a theme of that trip!) so it was too late to go to the meetup, and we needed some dinner. The hotel restaurant was overbooked and they told us they won’t have space until 9 PM. I think I looked very unhappy because they asked whether we wanted to sit at the big tables, and we said yes. The food was super-delicious, so we didn’t regret we missed the event 🙂

I Biked In London!!!!

My flight to Amsterdam was at 3-30 PM on Thursday, so I had time in the morning to visit my colleague in our London office. It was an unofficial visit, but we had things to discuss, and so he booked a room, and we talked for several hours straight. When we were done, there was still time until lunch, and my co-worker asked me whether I would like to go for a bike ride. He told me later I looked completely startled, and rightly so! I do not bike in Downtown Chicago, because I do not feel it safe (except if I venture there early in the morning on a weekend). But in London?!… However, I knew that he was a biker and he biked to work, and he reminded me that he had a foldable bike, and he said we could rent a city bike and that he could give me his helmet, so I decided to get out of my comfort zone.

I am extremely thankful to him for making this suggestion. Also, since I didn’t feel comfortable on a city e-bike, he suggested I take his bike, and he took a city one. Obviously, I was following him closely, but he was great in waiting for me and showing directions, especially because going on the wrong side of the road added to my discomfort.

The pictures below are the ones I took during this bike ride and the ones he took, including the one from atop his shoulder.

If somebody had told me two hours earlier I was about to do this, I would never have believed them!

PG Day UK

I believe that was the first conference I was late to! Maybe just for 15 minutes, but still – I always arrive early.

My talk went really well, and I am glad I rehearsed it multiple times. It’s not something “revolutionary” in terms of concepts, but I am glad I presented a new and very useful tool for performance analysis.

I think the biggest problem with the conference was a relatively low attendance, which, I think was a combination of being a relatively new event and not enough advertizing. Thereby, the audience was “polarized” – there were many people who “knew everything” and many total novices, and a very little number of people “from the middle.”

Also, the social event after was non-existent: everybody could stop at the pub and use one free drink ticket, but it was so loud and so crowded that the only place you could speak was outside 🙂

Hotel Durrants

Here are some pictures from Hotel Durrants in London. It’s a “victorian-style hotel” which I mostly chose because of it’s proximity to the conference venue (and an option of cancelling until almost the last minute).

As I mentioned, breakfast was included, but it was not a buffet, which left me wondering what exactly was included :). As I mentioned, the first morning I just ate the fastest thing, but for my second morning I wanted to have a proper no-rush breakfast.

As you can imagine, I loved the setting. However, when it was “no rush”, it was indeed no rush. Twenty-five minutes. I know better to order an English breakfast when in England, at least you know what you get. However, this time, since I was low on protein, I decided to order an egg whites omelet. That was what took 20_ minutes, and also, when they brought an omelet, there was no toast with it, which I totally expected. Since I was afraid it will take twenty minutes again:), I decided to compensate in the office where I was heading anyway.

Below are the drawing rooms on the ground floor of the hotel.