Polly wants a cracker...NOT!

Well, travel and flying is always an experience. Time between my last entry and now was spent as usual, no virtual rainforests should be cut down for the reason of archiving those events. But today...I got to the airport early as always, and the gate was changed 3 times in 10 minutes, we were basically just running up and down in the airport :) And while I was waiting for boarding to begin, I was trying to phrase a polite mail of complaint to the operators of the airport, as I noted that the security checks were quite sloppy - airport personnel was checked at the gates, but they were free to go in spite of the gate *BEEP*ing. At Berlin-Tegel, for example, also the personnel is carefully checked, and well, that's the way it should be. So anyhow, I was thinking about this subject, and was interrupted by some girls who asked me if I wanted to fill out a "How satisfied are you with the airport" form :) Hell I did. So now they know :P
Then, we got on the bus that took us to our plane, which was operated by Augsburg Airways (nice historical reference :) ), and was the first turbo-prop plane I've ever flown with. It was a Dash 8 Q400, where the Q stands for "quiet due to installation of the Active Noise and Vibration Suppression (ANVS) system designed to reduce cabin noise and vibration levels to nearly those of jet airliners", which translates to "feels just like the inside of a coctail shaker". The other problem was that we did not get a sandwich for breakfast, but chocolate crackers. They were good, but too little, too late :) And the plane was of course slow like a paralyzed snail, so we were just able to catch our connecting flight. All in all, that part of the trip was pretty bad :) The other leg went just fine, got me to work, where I'll try to sleep stay awake for an hour or two more.

For dinner I will try the sandwich maker I brought with, I hope it tastes good :P Or that at least the sandwiches will.
Take care,
M.

A Hard Day's Day(s)

Catching the minibus to the airport at 4:50 am was just the beginning. The flight, which should have taken off at 7:10 was stranded at BUD for 45 minutes, because the weather was quite foggy in MUC. At least we got an extra orange juice during the wait. Our connecting flight was only 20 minutes late, at least that was written on the board, but the take off only happened like 30 minutes later, again, because of the fog. When I looked out the window while we were on the runway, I did not even see the wing of the plane. That's a reassuring sight, I must tell you :) Going a few hundred kmh with virtually no visibility is definitely a lot of fun :) The layer of fog was only like 10 meters thich though, and the weather was fine and sunny above :) Strangely enough basically only the Munich Airport (name after the late Franz Josef Strauß, minister-president of Bavaria) and it's surroundings were still covered with fog whe we were already airborne, which is either very unlucky or a very bad choice of place for an airport.
So anyhow, the journey ended well, we had a good lunch (lasagne and canelloni at the usual Italian restaurant), and a very exhausting day of bugfixing for me after. I had a good dinner, and just chilled out in the evening for a few hours watching Desperate Housewives, Dead Like Me and reading Good Omens. Terry Pratchett + Neil Gaiman = tons of fun. My colleague, who stayed here for the weekend to get visited by his family borrowed my camera for the weekend, and after work he dropped in to return it, he was quite satisfied with it. I might have convinced him to buy a Kodak :)
Today...Maybe even worse than Monday? :) Crazy bugs, crazier fixes, but it's more or less over for today. Oh yeah, and I guess I did not even mention that on Friday there was not ticket waiting for me at the airport, as promised, so it took a few minutes to sort everything out for my trip home. These last 3 days were not that good for work :)
One good thing might be that I was asked if it would be okay to work on a project in March from here...We'll see how that turns out :)

Well, enough of me for today!
M.

The way to a man's heart...

Yesterday was just one like all the other days. We did play a few games of pool and foosball after work, though, and ate a great Turkish dürüm again. So it was fun. No real reason to blog about it, though :)
But I had a reason to start this entry : Passendale cheese. (The web page is in French, but you can also check it out in Dutch :) ) Passendale is a Belgian cheese company, and they make the greatest cheese I've tasted here until now. Their product is so rich in flavour, it's quite surprising, and still, it does not dominate with it's taste, but perfectly complements the taste of any of the sandwiches I used it for. I have no idea where it is sold in other countries, but I'm lucky enough to have a shop nearby that sells them :)
Oh yeah, the other thing is Rote Grütze, which stands for "Red Groats". It's just fruit with vanilla sauce, but it's very tasty, the ingredients make a perfect combination. That's another thing not to be found in Hungary, that's for sure...
I hope you are hungry now :) Bon appetit!
M.

The weights of the world seem lighter...

...after such a great morning trip. I think today on the BUD-MUC leg our flight took a route slightly to the South compared to the usual, and thus I had great view on the Alps! There were only very light clounds, the sun was shining, the top of the mountains was covered with snow... The fog/clouds was trapped in some of the valleys, and in a turn of one river the fog was just trapped over the water and flowing with it... Amazing sights! I wish I had the equipment to make good photos of this kind of stuff! (Of course I did not even try this time with my camera...The results would have been too much of a letdown :) ) On the second leg from MUC to TXL the weather was very cloudy, not offering much to look at, and I was too occupied with solving the Sudoku in my USA Today newspaper anyhow. There was also an article about the new "No Child Is Left Behind" educational program, and it's criticism: kids have to do to much math and reading, and even have to write tests! Well, when I was in primary school, tests were quite usual, and I guess they payed enough attention to how well us kids individually improved. If I remember correctly. Strangely enough, the Hungarian primary school system is changing currently to put less emphasis on tests. As if the praised (by us :) )European education model would get substituted with the American one, and vica versa. Interesting.
So well, I woke up tired but smiling, and the day started fine. This is going to be a nice week, in spite of the rain, I'm sure :)
BTW the week has a basketball game and a Dali exhibition in store for me, I hope I can visit both! But I will definitely blog on those...

Well, time to work :)
M.

Back in business

With a well deserved time out spent in Budapest behind me, I'm back to Berlin for a while. I will definitely head back home for the weekend and return on Monday, but after that everything is rather uncertain. Well, most important would be to have nice weather throughout January, that would bring the mood to do some quality work and decent thinking :)
This morning started quite early, I was at the airport at 6am already. With everything going fine I arrived in Berlin at around noon, to have a great lunch and start fixing some things that were left unfinished last year. After work I've also found the apartment tidy, luckily nothing crept out of the fridge while I was away. So I just made a quick trip to the store to fill my rations for the week, and started typing this after a nice dinner. Sleep will come swiftly, that's for sure.

Bye-bye und auf Wiedersehen,
M.