Alef Arendsen

I just arrived in Israel. I barely made my flight. I didn’t expect security measure to be that tight. Obviously I had expected a little bit more security, but not that much. On top of that, I forgot my Privium car, which allows me to pass through the fast lane with customs. Fortunately that it wasn’t really crowded, so that wasn’t a big deal.

Anyway, I’m spending the week in Herzeliya, giving a public training course with a partner of ours. I’m looking forward to it!

Well, praying maybe is a little bit too much, but I’m definitely hoping for that 20 – 23 knots to that’s predicted for the later afternoon to hold on. I’ve spent the weekend in Cairo, a trip I planned, but didn’t exactly fit in my schedule and also didn’t exactly turn out as I figured it would. First my flight to Cairo was canceled. Second, my hotel was canceled because of a no-show.

I did have a nice time though. I moved to the Intercontinental City Starts hotel, which is relatively new and supposedly the best hotel in town. Well, it sure is a great hotel.

I have a connecting flight to from Paris, which should safely get me to Amsterdam by 2pm. I left my car at the airport this time (normally I go by train), and kiteboarding gear is in there, so I can immediately drive to Muiderberg. That should leave me enough time for a decent session.

The earphones work very well by the way. The sound is just great. They do not block external sound as well as the Shures, but the sound quality simply is a lot better.

[update] no wind today and even if there was, it was an easterly, so no chance to do some boarding at sea–it’s an offshore direction. There might be some tomorrow though…

So I had to go to Cairo. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there, it was more that I didn’t want to go there. Yesterday I first presented at the Profict Wintercamp which was a very well organized, event with some great food. Robbie Vanbrabant spoke about Guice and I spoke to about Spring. We had a little bit of a panel discussion afterwards.

Straight after the event I had to fly to the airport. Well, not literally fly–I just had to be there very quick. My flight would leave at 9 and I left Loenen (which is about 75 mins from the airport) at about 6.45pm. Should normally be enough.

On my way to the airport, I listened to my voicemails and found out my travel agent had tried to reach me three times. Apparently my flight was cancelled!! He had rebooked on a different flight so I would still be able to get to Cairo in time to speak about the Egyptian User Group meeting. The flight out however was about 7.20pm, which I would never be able to make anymore.

After a few phone calls, we decided to try the 8.15pm flight to Rome after which I would have to get onto a 9.25am flight the next morning to Cairo. Problem solved… If I was able to get onto that flight.

Unfortunately, the trip to the airport didn’t go as smooth as I though and there was a little bit of a queue at the ticket counter. I’m a frequent flyer, but although that did help me a little bit to avoid the queue, it didn’t get me on the plane, ‘coz I simply was not in time anymore. So the lady tried to rebook on different flights but after five minutes, so told me there was no way she could get me to Cairo anymore before Sunday morning 3am. And I really had to be there on Saturday (today that is). All flights were full, there was simply no way to get to Cairo anymore in time, she said.

So while I walked back to my car, I called the travel agent to let him know that he cancel the whole trip. My agent told me to hold on and he started to look for another alternative. Within literally one minute he had an alternative flight ready for me, still with KLM (flights operated by KLM and Alitalia) that would get me to Venice that same evening (yesterday that is), to Rome the following morning flying out from Venice at 6.50am and to Cairo from Rome leaving at 9.25am. The flight to Rome would leave in 30 minutes, so I still had to hurry quite a bit!

I went back to the ticket counter and when it was my turn I told one of the KLM people that whereas they couldn’t get me onto a flight, my travel agent, who in fact is in Germany, could, so they’d better get me a ticket. After working like maniacs for 10 minutes to get me a FIM (Flight Interruption Manifest), I finally could get onto the flight. 20 minutes later I was on the flight to Venice. The KLM people were quite amazed and embarrassed. While they couldn’t get me on a flight anymore, my travel agent arranged it in literally one minute…

I have to say until two years ago, I never really saw the need to have a travel agent, unless you had to do an insane amount of traveling. Now, I do a fair bit of traveling, but I though it would only cost you. 5 minutes after I received my boarding pass for the KLM flight to Venice, I also received a text message with a hotel I could stay in and the additional flight details. So now I know better. Michael of Upper Level Travel: thanks!

Now I have to catch my flight to Cairo…

This morning I left at about 8am for Schiphol airport to fly to Malta, via Milano Malpensa. I had to stay in Milan for about 3 hours, but I didn’t really mind. Getting a good Italian lunch is never a punishment. At the check-in desk in Amsterdam I only got my ticket for the first leg and didn’t think about asking my ticket for the second leg.

On the way, we heard that there was major trouble at Milan Malpensa, because of fog. Arriving at Milan, I immediately proceeded to the transfer, to find about 100 people, not in such a good mood. Apparently, the whole airport had been closed down for about 2 hours because of the fog. I queued up for about 10 minutes during which, nothing really happened. I figured I was going to be smart, by simply exiting the airpot all together (at least, passing passport control), and proceeding to the check-in (ordinary check-in, not the transfer desk).

That was a bit of a mistake. Whereas at the transfer desk, I found about 100 people, in the main hall of terminal 1, there was at least a thousand all standing in line. I tried to sneak my way into the queue in middle, but people didn’t really like that.

Now we have a saying in Dutch that says: ‘Tom Poes verzin een list’. Tom Poes is a creation of Dutch comic artist Marten Toonder (Tom is a Dutch first name, Poes means cat, or pussy). ‘Tom Poes vezin een list’ can be translated as ‘Quickly, think of a ruse’, at least, according to Wikipedia.

I regularly think to myself: Tom Poes verzin een list! That always helps. This time as well. I proceeded to the gates and had to go through passport control. A lady stopped me and told me I had to go back to get my boarding pass. I did have an e-ticket receipt though and that’s what I used to brag my way in. I told her I exited security because I needed to go outside (now, I didn’t need to go outside, oh well…) and I forgot to pick up my boarding pass at the transfer desk. This (fortunately) did the trick. Otherwise I would never have made it to my flight again.

Again, I arrived at the transfer desk, which was now manned by only one service employee (you gotta love ‘em, those Italians ). Things went relatively quickly though and after say 20 minutes, I walked out of there with my boarding pass.

It fortunately wasn’t too late to get a bit of espresso and a slice of pizza (I had figured I should get some decent lunch, but well, this wasn’t too bad after all) and at 2.40pm my flight to Malta left. I’m here now in a hotel by the sea, with the waves crashing into the shores… So far so good

UPDATE: please don’t think I didn’t have a fun time at Malpensa and also don’t think I hate Italy . I love Italy in fact, it’s just a little disorganized at times, as Andrea says in the comments. But well, if the weather is always nice, if there’s plenty of food and if people get old without being organized, why bother huh . Sure enough, a little more organization would be great of course…

I travel a lot on planes. When on the airport or in the plane, working on the laptop is not always my favorite activity, so for times when I get fed up with Eclipse, Mail.App or any other computer’ish something, I always have a stack of magazines with me. Titles that are always in my handbag are Esquire and Economist.

I have a subscription to the Dutch Esquire and also to the Economist. I value the Economist highly as it brings me up-to-date on all major issues happening everywhere. I basically serves as replacement for my television set (I don’t have one) and my newspaper (don’t have one either). Even I had ones of those, I probably wouldn’t be able to use / read it much, because I’m hardly ever at home.

Anyway, when traveling to Holland last weekend, at Paris CDG airport I came across Monocle. It was new to me, and as a regular visitor to the book shops on the airport, that’s quite something. I bought a copy (the November issue) and was pleasantly surprised by the content. Sometimes I find the Economist a little too heavy a read (too much on the business, too little lifestyle) and from the Esquire, it’s a little bit the other way around: too much lifestyle and no ‘useful’ information .

Until now, I find Monocle to be a good cross-over between Economist and Esquire. Gents@Monocle: I you don’t like this comparison, let me know if you have something better