Thursday, March 01, 2007

Europe in the Spring.

Recently I got sent to Europe for some work stuff. It’s been a wee while since I was out of north America, so some of it was a wee bit new to me. The flight out was not too bad, NWA have made their planes a bit more comfortable, and I do like the personalized movie screens. Food was just about the best airline food I had ever; I went for the vegetarian option and had vegetable and chickpea curry (chickpeas are no longer vegetables?), wine and stuff. The lady in the red who was giving me food and drinks was great. I asked for an extra G&T (the only drink for me on a plane – also the only time I drink G&T is mid air), and I got two.

I watched “The Departed” on the wee tv – not bad, a movie about Boston Irish mobsters with Jack Nicholson and DeCaprio – good for a flight but I’m glad I didn’t pay to see it. And then kinda slept, with the aid of another drink.

Woke up in Amsterdam. Sore. And then walked about 43 miles to get to the terminal to go to Stuttgart. And got on a wee bus to the plane. And stayed on that stoopid wee bus for an hour while they done stuff to the wee plane. And we went on the wee plane and I felt like I hadn’t slept for a year. The plane took off and some one gave me a bit of dry bread with cheese on it. And nothing to drink. So I kept the bread and waited til I got a drinks and then devoured the lot and then we were in Stuttgart.

All was easy from there on. Stuttgart airport was interesting. The store next to the car hire place was not what I expected to see in an airport, nor were the toys in its window. Not at that time of the morning when I feel like I ran a marathon. I was not appalled, just shell shocked.

Just to reinforce that I was indeed in Germany, there was an Oompah band playing outside the airport. Really.

Anyway I got my car, a pretty nice Alfa Romeo 159 and got familiar for the first time with a built in navigation system. And went to work.

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