Planes, trains and automobiles 3

Day two of the conference, and I'm scheduled to speak as the final speaker before lunch. This being a congregation of academics, the other two speakers spend way more than their allotted time. Don't matter though - I'm focused, and as the speaker before me finishes up his Q&A, I do my mental equivalent of putting on the chain mail and sunglasses, skip in place, rotate my shoulders and loosen my neck. The my music hits - the sirens go off, "Holla...if ya hear me"..and I walk towards the podium.

At least I WISH I'd had intro music. 'Cause the lame reality of it all - and if you've ever been to a conference, symposium or workshop you'll recognize this - is that the appointed chair of the session says something along the lines of "Our next speaker is (your name here), with a talk titled (title of your talk here)".

What possible purpose does this serve? The sequence of speakers is given in the program, so simply reading aloud the name of the speaker and the title of your talk holds little magic. Moreover, as some poor PhD student who "volunteered" to do the technical assistance for the conference (i.e., making sure the presentations appear on screen and running around in the audience with a microphone for the Q&A sessions) already has out the title slide of your talk on the screen, this serves no purpose whatsoever. Unless you assume that your audience can't read, which would be odd, considering that you ask the audience to submit abstracts for posters and oral presentations. If playing some entrance music plus accompanying video ever becomes an option, I'm first in line.

Especially if the chair of your session manages to introduce you first by mispronouncing your name and then screw up the definition of the award that landed you the coveted spot as invited speaker. Which coincidentally was what happened to me. Luckily, I was well enough prepared not to be affected by this, and I started my talk. I linked my story to presentations given before me whenever possible, I connected with the audience and made sure to make eye contact (to the extent this is possible throughout the venue with 150+ participants) and get nods, I was enthusiastic and I thoroughly enjoyed presenting my work. When I was done, I waited for any questions, but none came. At this point, I stated that this could be a good thing...or not, which elicited some laughter, and then the session broke off.

As we went to lunch, I wondered whether I'd bombed worse than a post-Y2K Van Damme movie. Then people started approaching me and asking me how they could use my methods on their systems and I got all sorts of collaboration offers, at which point I figures out that the reason I got no questions was because they'd not only understood what I presented, but also that I'd managed to get the audience to see that this was something they could use in their research.

I can't deny that this was a pretty good feeling. This also marks the second time I use Presentation Zen to prepare a talk, and I'm getting better at it. Not to blindly plug Garr Reynolds and his book, but it really helps to free up slide real estate and focus the attention where it should be - on the speaker.

Planes, trains and automobiles 2

Having successfully reached my destination, it was time to get to the conference venue and get things started. I wasn't going to give my talk until the second day of the conference, so I had plenty of time to check out the venue + make sure that my presentation looked OK on the existing equipment. There was, of course, also ample opportunity to mingle and initiate small-talk with other speakers, etc., as well as reflect over the many potential pitfalls of public speaking, which were on display among a number of the speakers.

Which is not to say that the presentation skills have any real bearing on their qualities as scientists, but rather reflect the time and effort they spend planning and making presentations. Some people I know to be very good scientists gave absolutely mind-numbingly boring presentations, often due to (i) lack of apparent storyline and (ii) way excess detail being put on display. Add to that poorly designed slides (including obvious Frankensteining), no time-management (hence skipping of slides to get to the conclusions..), inability to read audience reactions and brutal lack of enthusiasm/charisma, and you've got a pretty good list of the reasons why I detest conferences. Which is not to say that there weren't good speakers - far from it - but the fact of the matter is that a lot of talks are made and given as an afterthought, which makes for a long couple of days for conferencegoers. When I could sit and listen to a talk - well within my field of expertise - and not understand what they had done and why, it speaks volumes. Assuming that I don't absolutely suck at what I do, what they did was take an entire journal article worth of experimental data and conditions, slam-dunk it down sequentially on PowerPoint slides and present it in all its detail within a 30-minute talk. Worse still, the presenter spent the first five minutes of the talk thanking the organizers and showing slides depicting the university he was from, complete with demographics and maps.

And his was the first talk of the session, with two more to go before we got a coffee break..absolutely ricockulous.

After the talks for the day were over and done with, it was time for poster session with refreshments, which was kind of cool. There were lots of posters - many of which I found interesting - and so I got to bother a lot of PhD students and researchers about their work. Lots of talented people out there, that's for sure.

Planes, trains and automobiles 1

Last week I was at a conference in Lund, Sweden -the final conference/travel of the year for me. Which is just as good, 'cause while I'm all about spreading the word about my research and doing my David Lee Roth-thing from a podium, I'm not all that gung-ho about the travel. My distaste for the travel aspect increases proportionally with the number of connecting flights I need to get to my destination, and increases exponentially with the number of nights I have to spend away from my wife and kid.

Wednesday morning (to the extent 4 AM qualifies as "morning") I had to giddyup and have some old salt in a taxi haul me to the airport. Just before 8 AM I was in Copenhagen and found myself purchasing train tickets. 40 minutes later I was in Malmö, trying to convince the stupid vending machine to sell me tickets the final stretch to Lund. Clever as I am, I brought with me a stash of Euros, Sweden being a part of the EU and all. That turned out to be more useless than a "Rock the vote" campaign/membership drive for Venstre launched two days AFTER the general election. But not, as it turned out, more useless than a station clerk in Malmö.

After massively failing to purchase a ticket using Euros (what kind of lame attempt is it to cling to what used to be your national currency after you've joined the EU?) or credit card, I tried to solicit the help of a station clerk, who told me that she didn't know how to use the machine. This short conversation happened first in what passes for Swedish in Malmö, and when it became abundantly clear that she might as well have spoken some African language with clicking noises and all. Or Danish. Switching to English improved the communication greatly, but didn't help me much by way of getting tickets.

One semi-meltdown and one visit to the ticket office later, I had missed the express train and was stuck with a local route that stopped at every station at least once. Unlike the swank and roomy express train, the local train was packed, and I got the last available seat.

Lucky me.

On the twin seats facing me was a lesbian couple who made out like it was their livelihood and Spring Break was held during Mardi Gras. This lasted the entire 25 or so minutes the trip took. I'm not exactly shy or prude, but I definitely felt like I was invading something private - which in and of itself is bullshit considering that the couple obviously didn't opt to work blue in a crowded train due to a lack of exhibitionism. On the other hand, leaving my seat would send another kind of signal that didn't appeal to me either, so I was stuck.

Once in Lund, I started walking towards the campus and hotel. I'd asked someone in the organizing committee about the distance from the train station to the hotel, and upon being told that it was only one kilometer, there was no way I'd take a cab. After having walked for about an hour in increasingly crappy weather with my bags, I started second-guessing my decision, not to mention the accuracy of the one-kilometer estimate. I was equipped with what can only be described as a roughdraft of a map, where most of the roads were omitted, which didn't help my navigation one bit.

What also didn't help matters was that I was looking for a hotel on campus that shared a name with every other building within several blocks, in a region with absolutely no signs. Still; I made it to the hotel with about one hour to go before the conference started.

Redemption

Tuesday I finally got to give the award acceptance talk/lecture in (or rather just outside of) Goth'N'Burg. It was supposed to happen back in August, but some kind of flu totally kicked my ass and I had to cancel, which major-league sucked. Thus I was pretty dead-set on a) showing up and b) giving one hell of a performance this time.

The presentation went well and I was able to connect with the audience, which in an ideal world would've had a few more asses in the seats. I also got a bunch of questions pertaining to extrapolations of the presented data, which was a good sign, as opposed to questions which can be answered by restating material that's already presented, which might indicate that I didn't do a very good job of explaining the data set. A lot of the questions came from a researcher orginally hailing from California. Although she spoke Swedish just fine, I shamelessly used her as an alibi to give the presentation in English "so as to avoid any kind of ambiguity". The Scandinavian languages are exactly different enough as to be the cause of confusion when presenting scientific data based on terminology which is translated from English to begin with.

Said Californian also provided a conversation partner during lunch, where we could do the patented "what kinds of food from the US do you miss in Scandinavia" bit. After rattling off Taco Bell and Johns, Christy mentioned that she missed this quaint Southern restaurant chain called the Cracker Barrel that she always stopped by when she drove cross-country. It's very unlikely that someone not familiar with the southern US is familiar with this chain, and so one of the Swedish people at the table asked what Cracker Barrel was.

This represented an opportunity for a pun too good to pass up, so I turned to the guy and said something like "In Norway, we call it 'Utendørs badestamp' (Outdoor hot tub)."

Tumbleweeds flew by. Quizzical faces were turned in my direction. Epic joke fail.

Turns out that Christy wasn't familiar enough with Swedish/Norwegian to get the joke, and the Swedes weren't familiar enough with American slang to connect the dots. Oh well.

Come on; it's pure comedy gold - Cracker barrel = outdoor hot tub, 'cause the only ones insane enough to buy these things in Norway and think it's a good idea to sit in a tub of water while it snows are whiter than Caspar the friendly ghost washing down a piece of white bread with a big glass of milk whilst wearing a knitted sweater featuring a moose.

That's Demetri Martin funny right there.

The only thing I would've done differently has to do with the fact that the PowerPoint slides were made before I read Presentation Zen, and there was absolutely no way I could justify spending a lot of time making a new one from scratch. I was actually quite happy with this talk back when I made it, but looking at it post Presentation Zen, it could've been SO much better. It didn't look amateur-like, but I never would've used that many bullet point slides now, despite the fact that this made the job of presenting a lot easier, with less to remember. This presentation, compared to the talk I gave in Oslo a couple of weeks back, also served as an example of why you lose a lot of flexibility and slide real-estate by using a company - or in my case laboratory - template.

I REALLY recommend the book Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds.

Off-campus project meetings are hard work

Damn straight they are. Yesterday's project meeting at the University of Oslo - including the travel - was a cool 14 hours in total. All things considered, this wasn't bad at all - it needed to happen and good things came out of it. The travel part is what sucks, but I'll go to great lengths in order to be able to sleep at home rather than doing the dinner + hotel song and dance or worse - the lunch-to-lunch (including dinner) thing.

Despite all kinds of technological advances, face time is irreplaceable for project meetings - and that's not including the social/networking aspects. All of the available alternatives are hampered by severe drawbacks. Email and e-room type of exchanges are notoriously prone to misunderstandings. Moreover, some people have a tendency to up the aggro when communicating online, which does nothing for the working climate. Besides, everyone must be on the same page technology-wise - including preferred software - when doing the e-room thing. I've never witnessed or participated in a phone conference with more than three participants that wasn't a gigantic clusterf*ck. especially if there are some language issues. Video conferences are hampered by much of the same, in addition to file transfer issues depending on the transmission quality in some countries.

The airport thing gets really old really fast though. Yesterday, the Gods of Travel were angry. It started quite promising, my TRD-OSL flight boarded on time and the Captain informed us that the eta was expected to be well in advance of schedule due to excellent flight conditions. This turned out to be somewhat optimistic. A while after take-off, the very same Captain informed us that they had a warning light on. Not good. This particular warning light indicated that a hatch was not properly closed. Definitely not good - especially with the Air France thing still fresh in memory. Thus we had to return to TRD - at low altitude and airspeed - to get the matter resolved or to board a different aircraft. The kicker: Five more minutes of flight time and it'd be quicker to continue to OSL.

D'OH!

Don't get me wrong - I'm definitely happy that they care about the aerodynamic state of the aircraft. I'm all about that. I was somewhat less thrilled that once on the ground, they decided to refuel, rotate the tires, stock the fridge and get dead last in line on the runway. Oh well.

Once in flight yet again, the crew informed us that those with connecting flights should contact the ground crew at OSL, who'd be happy to help. Yeah; if it's anything Gardermoen is known for, it's the service and positive atmosphere that just oozes from that place. No bonus points for guessing that my return flight was canceled. However, it wasn't canceled before they pulled ye olde bait'n'switch operation of changing gate number and not announce the delay until it was time to board.

Still, the meeting went really well, and we've got some absolutely awesome results that we'll pitch to a really high-impact journal.

Enough is enough

We totally caved in today. For a couple of weeks now, we've had an increasingly hard time of traversing the ~1.5 slippery and icy kilometers from the main road to our house. There are three major 90+ degree turns and one speed bump to traverse - all while climbing pretty steeply - before we get to the final plain and turn down to our place. Ever since we moved to Trondheim, we've rolled with regular snow tires, but today we had a hard time getting up our own driveway, so we loaded up the car with our summer tires (which were due for replacement come Spring anyway) and left for getting proper snow tires. With spikes this time - the biggest and most pointy we could find.

Back In Bergen

So; after my PhD administrator bash I'm now in Bergen to git some bidness done, and to meet up with people I haven't seen in a while. As I strolled over to the rental car company to pick up my ride, I didn't expect much. After all, the web page defined the rental car classes in relations to Peugeot models, and I've had my share of rental cars of french origin, thank you very much. As a matter of fact, the two worst cars I've ever driven have been french cars with less than 10 000 km on them. Turns out I got a Toyota Prius. A red one, even, and as everybody knows, red cars are the fastest ones. The thing is ultrasilent (save for some noise from the bearings or something at low rpms), roomy, totally kewl-looking, and handles like a dream. It's got an automatic transmission which for me is a throwback to the Buick Regal we used to have stateside, only this one has more of a joystick feel to it. I'm lovin' this car, save for the fact that some sadistic freakshow set the language on the status display to - you guessed it - french. Putain!

It's even been a productive day, as me and Dr. H got to put the finishing touches on a major manuscript and submitted it to one of the better journals in my field - yay. This particular manuscript has taken almost exactly one year from the initial experiments were done to submission of what we hope is the final version, but it turned out well - I'm quite pleased with the finished product. And Dr. H made a kick-ass TOC graphic today, so that's also gonna get some exposure in the very near future. I really need to get some better graphics software than what I'm running now - that's becoming obvious. The only nasty surprise came after we started the online submission process. I'm a stickler for following the "Guidelines for authors" for a given journal, so I was pretty surprised when we found out that the online submission thingy has all kinds of extra hoops we've got to jump through, plenty of criteria not found in the "Guidelines" and some tedious double bookkeeping type crap. Why in the blue hell they changed the previous web interface is beyond me, as the new thing is very reminiscent of how another publishing house does it's online bidness. And that ain't necessarily a good thing. Oh well - the deed is done, and now we've got to wait for the wheels of peer-review to start turning.

There was even time for some TGIF with Dr. H and the A-man himself this evening - holla'

On the way back to the hotel, I stopped by Troldhaugen. It's been way too long since the last time I was there. When I lived at Fantoft during my student years, I walked out to Troldhaugen quite a lot. Something about that place is just so serene, despite the fact that you can hear the noise from the highway everywhere on the compound. Back in the day I even used to lug my guitar out to Troldhaugen on particularly nice days, and just sit down by the water and just play. Sure beat the hell out of the view from my place.

I'm baaaaaack

...from a lovely weekend in Oslo, complete with too much refreshments at one point, awesome food and company, and a great concert I'll write more about soon.

No planes, but trains and automobiles

Just got back from a conference at a montain ski resort straight outta' The Shining. At least that was the impression I got as the taxi made its way from the train station to the venue. Luckily, it turned out to be a better experience than what's described in the aforementioned novel by several orders of magnitude.

Because of the location, air travel was not a viable option, and in the choice between collective transportation (train) and driving on icy roads to a place in the middle of nowhere, the decision was not difficult to make. Even Nansen himself would have packed an extra wool sweater if he were to travel to this particular location. I've always enjoyed travelling by train, and this experience did nothing but support my favorable impression. The list of advantages compared to taking a flight includes:

• Way more leg room and more comfortable seats (although it still sucks to sit next to other passengers, as my shoulders cover half of the next seat)
• You can move around, and even go outside for some fresh air at the longer stops
• A restaurant wagon where you can hang out, have a meal, coffee or even beer/wine
• The seats are designed so that you've got room to work or read, which worked out very well for me
• You're not loaded onto a hermetically sealed without air conditioning for 30+ minutes prior to take-off so that the loser airline can obfuscate how late they really are by pretending that boarding = take-off
• You don't have to show up two hours before the train is supposed to leave so that incompetent clerks and handlers have more time to make elaborate schemes for how to best "lose" your baggage
• If an invisible suitcase-wearing, tribal armband tattoo-sporting, two-day seminar-educated, high school drop-out rent-a-cop tries to pat me down or stick his hands down my pants, I can give him the ass-kicking he so richly deserves and reasonably claim to have been assaulted, unlike the ordeal you have to put up with at airports.

I'll try to use the train more often from now on

Kure Beach

Talked to a very good friend of mine this weekend. Dude is presently teaching/supervising at an aviation school practically at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, and will continue being there off and on at least until July. As I was talkin' to him, I looked out the window and pondered the several metric tons of snow I've shoveled over the last week. Man.

To compensate, here are some pictures from the Outer Banks close to Cape Fear in good ol' NC:

Darlings By The Sea; the coolest inn we've ever been to bar none.

Trials and tribulations of travel

Can you believe it - yet again we got snake eyes in the rental car lottery and ended up with a french car - a citroen c4. I can only speculate that this particular car was given its name from the fact that c4 has about the same odds of blowing up on ya.

As soon as we got the car at Bergen airport Flesland, we were puzzled by the fact that the c4 was supposed to be in the "Golf" class despite the fact that I had a really hard time fitting behind the wheel. Even in the way-back position, my legs were severely squeezed between the seat and the steering wheel. Way back in 2001 and 2002, we used to rent a Nissan Micra for our Norwegian vacations which had way more legspace than this freakin' piece of french "engineeering". Not only was it small, it was damn small.

This particular car had a number of features not mentioned in the brochure, including: side-view mirrors not adjustable by other means than by pushing/forcing each mirror to its desired position (using the electric controls only resulted in the mirrors being retracted into their parking position, regardless of which way the controls were manipulated), electric window being locked in the "down" position (which is a slight disadvantage in Norway during December), the windshield wiper locking up sometimes (that's a real treat when the thing won't freakin' stop), a "parking sensor" which started screaming and beeping whenever the vehicle would get within a five-meter distance of another object, and another "convenient" sensor which starts beeping and complaining plus displaying "Risk of ice" whenever the temperature would drop to or below three degrees Centigrade - yet another plus in wintertime Norway. Not to mention that it ranked somewhere between cardboard and styrofoam on the hardness/durability scale. Whenever we would do something drastic to the external structure of the "car", like close the doors, the exterior would ripple. In short, we've had a bunch of different rental cars over the years, including the brands Peugot, Renault and Citroen, and let me say that without a shadow of a doubt, Renault and Citroen are the worst cars I've ever driven. Ever.

On our way back to Trondheim, our flight was - surprise, surprise - delayed. More specifically, it was two hours delayed due to "incoming aircraft being late", which turned into "technical problems". To pass the time, I I took a second stroll past the two-bit scum-of-the-earth douchebags who have frequented Norwegian airports lately with their incessant credit-card offers. "Excuse me - do you use Visa?" Apparently, they weren't prepared for my response: "No dude - we're paying for all our transactions with pearls of glass and polished sea shells".

Freakin' Thieves

Did ya know that if you rent a car through teh internet using, say, Hertz, you can give the nice rental company folks your flight number so that they can make sure you get your rental car when your flight arrives? That's massive cool, especially if - again hypothetically speaking - your flight was scheduled to land dangerously close to the far end of the opening hours of said enterprise. That way you can get the service you've procured even if your flight is delayed, or if your flight arrives with zero time between touchdown and closing of the rental car service.

What the Hertz - and other rental agencies, I'm sure - web pages do not inform you of, however, is that they have an additional fee of 300 NOK + 25% tax if you use their connect-to-flight service. What the hell? When you shop around for prices at different rental agencies, you want to know all the costs so that you can decide for yourself which company you want to use. For all I know, the other agencies might use higher rates for this service, but that ain't the point - especially seeing as how the opening hours vary between agencies.

Freakin' thieves!

Airport security is a wonderful thing

So yesterday me and Dr. S to da V rolled down to Bergen for purposes of data collection. We had the first available flight out, and consequently had to get up before 4 AM. Since we needed to bring some custom-made syringes (a bunch of them), we had to be at the airport in time to check in a bag if we couldn't get it past security. Two days prior, I'd called the airport and asked what my odds were of bringing a box full of 10-12 cm syringes, and they told me that barring a miracle or a very understanding security guy at the checkpoint, I'd have to send the admittedly sharp objects. This information became available to me after three phonecalls, more than 15 different transfers and at least one Kevorkian disconnect.

As we rolled deuce deep into the airport, we decided that I'd just try to get past the security and pull ye olde "I'm just an absent-minded academic and I'm not a morning person so I plain forgot" mea culpa standby in case the rent-a-cops decided they wanted to jump me or something. Just to be sure, I was also bringing two ampules of white powder, so if I got stopped and frisked, I'd have some 'splaining to do. SO; I put my bag on the conveyor belt, put on my most benign look, and pimp-strolled through like nothing. My travel companion, however, got jumped and received the "let's rummage through your stuff" bonus package on account of him having forgotten to take off his belt.

Cliff notes: Rolling past security with a box full of syringes and white powder in vaguely marked glass vials is ok, nailclippers, wrist watches and belt buckles are not.

My faith in the security measures at airports has now skyrocketed.......

Travelling FROM Belgium

Yesterday, 'twas time to go home, having deep-6'ed our Brussels trip.

Joe Le Taxi - or rather, his local Flemish English-speaking and curteous equivalent - rolled up just past 6 AM. The train left Brugge station at 6:35 AM - precisely on schedule, and we arrived at Brussels South approximately one hour later. So far so good, but here is where $hit started to hit - or 'it, considering what they speaketh in Bruxelles - teh fan. We located the platform, and awaited the 07:57 AM train to Brussels airport. Less than five minutes before our train was supposed to depart, we heard some L'Oreal talk over the speaker, and recognized enough to figure out that it concerned our train. So; we vamoosed down and figured out that the baguette-eating bastards had done a last-minute (less than five minutes) platform change. Which led to a lot of running. As we got off the escalator and onto the platform, the doors were closing. My wife got in just before me, and as I started to enter, the doors were closing, and really made an effort in doing so. After wrestling myself and a suitcase aboard the train, the conductor rolled in and gave me a talking to - I could've been trapped between the door and the platform as the train pulled out. Right - the pneumatic motors driving the train doors would've overpowered me.

After having arrived at Brussels airport, we were faced with our plane being delayed with about an hour and a half. Bummer. The hour and a half turned into well over two hours. "We regret to inform you that the flight to Oslo has been delayed due to the incoming aircraft being late." Male Bovine Feces - the incoming aircraft was late because it was delayed in taking off, not of some force majeure, ya back-peddling douchebags.

We flew with SAS, a company whose new slogan is "We reintroduce service". So far, the only changes in policy I've been able to observe is that they occasionally serve coffee or tea on a fraction of their flights. Not on the Brussels-Oslo flight, though - instead, they took great pains in communicating that "On this flight, passengers travelling on first class will be served their choice of drinks and a hot meal with wine, followed by cafe avec. Our Economy Plus passengers will enjoy a drink and a sandwich. Passengers travelling Economy will have the opportunity to buy food, drinks or goods from a selection." They might as well have said "First class passengers will now be fed peeled grapes whilst sipping on a red wine served by Rockefeller himself. Our middleclass passengers will get the crumbs from the table of teh wealthy. The rest of y'all can go f*ck yourself". It's quite amazing how they take great pains to communicate a sense that "If you would just apply yourself more, maybe you'd be able to fly first class too". Honestly, it makes sense that if you pay three to four times more for the same flight, you get some privileges, but I fail to see the importance of announcing this fact to the passengers crammed into seats last inhabited by Frodo, Sam and their hobbit relatives.

As we arrived in Oslo, we actually got our bags, which was positively surprising. Not surprising or positive was however the fact that our flight was delayed. After having waded through the baggage claims, the booking counter and the security station, we sat and waited at the gate - again. We had gotten information about the delay while checking in, but no morsel of this fact had reached the passengers waiting at the gate. At 15:30, there still was no information, and the plane was nowhere to be seen - which by the way shoud've tipped off some of the more astute travellers in line. Right after the plane was supposed to have taken off, a 25 minute delay was announced - again due to "the incoming plane being late". 50 minutes after this announcement, we started boarding, after an additional 35 minutes, the plane took off. 25 minute delay due to the incoming aircraft being late - don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. It ended up being a 80 minute delay, camouflaged in small increments so as to appear less offensive. I really wish the douchebags at SAS would've spent more resources being on time and less resources obfuscating and renaming f*ck-ups.

When we finally came home, it had taken 13 hours, and it had snowed in Trondheim. It was kind of strange to consider that we had eaten in the outside section of our restaurant the night before. It's cold in Norway, isn't it?

Travelling to Belgium part 4

Day 3

At this point, I've pretty much seen most of Brugge twice, so I don't feel like I've missed out on that much when we head home tomorrow, at an ungodly hour. We're gonna catch a train at 06:35, so we're getting our breakfast at Brussels airport.

We've tried the Belgian waffles soaked in Belgian chocolate, and we've grown somewhat tired of chips/french fries being the only version of potatoes available. Twice now I've ordered baked potatoes, and ended up with what looked suspiciously like french fries only in a slightly different shape and with a sprinkle of parsley on top. They know how to make a proper steak here, though.

I've also located a person in Brugge who didn't manage to communicate in English - a sales clerk in his late teens/early 20's at Free Record Shop. I totally found a DVD of Wrestlemania III (1987, Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant as the main card) in - check this out - their WWE section. Yeah yeah yeah - wrestling is lowbrow, fake and scripted etc.......if you plan on giving me beef for occasionally enjoying classic wrestling, just make good and damned sure that you're not a fan of something I can tear apart and totally own you over, like soccer, porned-up soaps like Sex & The City or pretty much anything involving musicians whose technical abilities are less than stellar.

I've sort of given up my lofty plans for possibly buying a sports jacket or a suit while in Brugge. The latter was deemed hopeless after I figured out that we don't have time for getting one modified, and the latter was abandoned after finding out that invariably, the cool ones were not available in my size.

Travelling to Belgium part 3

Day 1-2

I've now walked a lot in Brugge (why do the french-speaking population insist on calling it Brüges? That is pronounced exactly like Douche, so I can understand why the people who actually live there prefer the more Germanic "Bruche"), and I've taken a ton of photos, some of which will probably turn out to be cool when I take a second, more critical look later. Being here is very relaxing, and sitting outside in a snack bar/cafe/brasserie close to the Markt and cathedral is an almost meditative experience. Our hotel rules, the food is good, etc. I even tried Belgian beer - proper beer, not what I usually drink - and came right back to the conclusion that I really don't like beer. I like Corona, Bud Light and Miller. Of proper beers, the Weissbiers I've tasted in Austria are closest to my actual liking, plus maybe Hansa.

It's unbelievable how many chocolate shops it's possible to cram into one city, by the way. Also, there are way too many tourist shops for tourism not to be one of the revenue sources for Brugge - no diggity. It's totally awesome to walk down the narrow streets and look at the (very green) canals, and sit in the shade of a chestnut tree, of which there is an abundance. Later this afternoon, there will be some shopping.

There is a strange duality in Belgium. Here in Brugge, I've got no problems making myself understood - and understanding the answers I get - in English. Even at the local grocery store, English works fine. People here can communicate in English. However, in Brussels, which is the capitol of the European Union, it's a different situation altogether. Which is pretty much the reverse of what I expected, until I realized that Brussels is in the french-speaking part of Belgium. How come I can ask almost any person in Brugge (100% so far) and have English work, but when I call a hotel in Brussels, it's Inspector Closeau time? And it's not Jean-Claude's Rent-By-The Hour Can-Can Hotel either, it's the five-star Le Meridien, for crying out loud.

I've called them twice - one time to cancel our reservation, and one more time to confirm the cancellation, because of a technical snafu. Both times, I've started out talking to some receptionist, who immediately transferred me as soon as he or she heard that I spoke English. Then I first heard some "Le Voulez-vous, parce que je le vaux bien", followed by a snoring sound or someone clearing their throat, which I assume is Flemish, and then "If you want to 'peak to an Anglais-'peaking 'ersun, press 3". And from there, it's downhill. "You want to cancel reservation from 'otel? Can I 'ave numbér, please? You 'ave resérved 'otel room yes?" English, motherf*cker - Do you speak it? If anything, this has strongly reinforced the view that cutting out the Brussels stay was a very wise decision, seeing as how I don't speak french. I know that Pigeon dreams of dumping me on teh french countryside, and if anything, I am absolutely sure that I'll never, ever, ever, go to france on vacation or otherwise, unless I've got someone who can translate for me - preferably someone who doesn't want to dump me in the sticks. I absolutely do not care if it looks like Paradise with a face-lift - if I can't even get something to eat due to communication problems, my ass is SO not going there.

Why is it so difficult to understand that in a day and age where globalization is a key phrase, we need to have one standard language that everybody learns well enough to use if there is an outside chance they'll have to communicate with international customers through their job? Otherwise, someone planning to do international business would have to learn one language for each country he or she visited, which is less than practical. Back in da day when the four major European languages were English, Spanish , french and German, a decision was made that English should be the international language. Was that necessarily the best choice? Hell if I know, and Hell if I care. The point is that today, the international common language is English, and especially in the capitol of the European Union, every motherf*cker who might come in contact with people through his or her job should be able to speak it.

If I travel to some Vietnamese village, I don't expect them to speak English. I didn't even necesarily expect every shop keeper in Wien to be able to speak English, so I used what little I remembered of my legendary high school German, and it worked fine. However, in Brussels there is no freakin' excuse.

Travelling to Belgium part 2

....finally our suitcase arrived.

Moreover, we cancelled our "vacation" from Thursday to Sunday in Brussels, and re-booked our flight to Thursday. Fan-f*ckin'-tastic. Can't wait.

I must say, though, that after having spent a day in Brugge, it's a really nice city. No Wien wow-factor, but awesome nonetheless. Also, people are very friendly and helpful, plus they can speaka da English. Lots of pictures to be taken, and after checking out some of the shops - potentially a sports jacket or suit to be bought

Travelling to Belgium part 1

Or should I say Day 0-1. We left yesterday (Sunday) for Brugge (not Bruge) via Copenhagen and Brussels. The plane was supposed to leave 5:20 PM from Trondheim, and our connecting flight was supposed to take off at 8 PM from Copenhagen. Things started to fall apart even before we got to board the Widerøe flight to Denmark, as we were 25 minutes delayed right off the bat. Plus, the - what's the politically correct term these days - air mattresses kept stalling it for at least another ten minutes once we were aboard the plane, on account of them trying to tally the passengers and check whether one stand-by ticket could materialize into a seat. Air-headed, seven layers of laquer and lipstick-wearing, cheap Tax-Free Kahlua-drinking, glorified waitresses. We asked if the head air mattress (feel free to insert your own pun here) could check our connecting flight to see if we had any chance at all of making it - if they could hold the plane for ten minutes or whatever. But nooo.......such information was beyond her powers. When we landed at Castrup - 25 minutes before our next flight was scheduled to leave - we were loaded onto a bus, which basically meant that we had to wait for all the passengers to disembark before we had any chance of moving towards the gate. People sure take their sweet time getting off, I'll tell you that. Moreover, in their infinite wisdom, they elected to disembark only through the front entrance, whereas they loaded us on using both the front and rear doors. We were LATE.

After we finally got into the building, we had to run all the way across Castrup to our terminal (just a short walk, the air mattress assured us.........more than 15 minutes of brisk walking/running is more like it). But we caught a break, as the flight to Brussels was 15 minutes delayed. Yay.

Once we landed in Brussels, just before 10 PM, we strolled for what seemed like an eternity to the baggage claim. Nice airport, but it must've been designed by the same masterminds that begat Gardermoen, since we had to walk for WAAY longer than we do at Dulles, Detroit or even O'Hare, all of which are much bigger airports. As the conveyor belt unloaded its cargo and people left with their shit and got on their merry way, it dawned on us that SAS/Widerøe had screwed us like common air mattresses and lost our bag. At this point, I had very little patience left, as we still had to take two trains to get to our destination. Fuming, we waited in line at the baggage claims, where some puny, local waffle-eating douche bag was taking his sweet time processing the four or so people in line before us. There was even a freakin' low-life Volvo-driving, meat-ball eating, bolibompa-watching, bottom-rung-on-the-corporate-ladder-inhabiting Swede who cut in line two places in front of us, because he was late for a taxi his loser buddies had ordered. The lady in front of us was nice and English-speaking, though. She had lost some bags AND gotten one hard-shell Samsonite suitcase broken in the transport process. Anyone who owns one of these can attest to the fact that they're pretty much unbreakable, but somehow, the bag handlers had managed to demolish this 28 kg unit on the way from Tel Aviv to Brussels. And people wonder why I never want to send my guitars as "special luggage". Yeah; right.

The nice lady in front of us commented, as the local teenage mutant waffle freakshow was wielding the magic of modern technology and bar code tracking, how impressive it was that they could tell exactly where the baggage was. I massively disagree. I can pinpoint to within 35 square meters of interest where the lost bags are - they're not fuc*in' here, and that's all that matters. I absolutely don't care if the jerkwad behind the counter can tell me that "Yeah; this is your problem right here - the bags were loaded onto the flight to Anchorage instead of to Brussels, so right now they're en route to terminal 3 in Alaska". It'd be infinitely more impressive if they could've actually sent the baggage where it was supposed to go when it was supposed to be sent. Not f*cking up is always more impressive than some elaborate post-occurrence analysis of exactly how the f*ck they f*cked up.

Anyway; after the baggage claim meltdown, we had to find the trains - first to Brussels Noord and then to Brugge. Even more so as the clog-wearing, chocolate-eating, acne cream commercial before-picture behind the counter had warned us that since it was now almost 11 PM, we'd better hurry if we wanted to catch the last train to Brugge. As we bought tickets, the friendly, but in retrospect not so well-informed - conductor told us that we could buy tickets all the way to Brugge from him, and that we could board the Brugge-train from either Brussels Noord or Brussels Mid. We got on board, and disembarked at Brussels Noord, as was the original plan. Following some frantic searching for an open information desk at 11.25 PM or at least some billboard, we spectacularly failed in locating any Brugge-headed trains. We asked a friendly local, who took some time out of his schedule to guide us back to the bulletin board and confirm that there were no more trains to Brugge until the following morning. So that was some 26 Euro well spent. In the words of Shakespeare, we were f*cked!

As the conference started 8 AM Monday morning, spending the night in Brussels was not an alternative, so we waded through a bunch of homeless people and addicts who reside just inside the Brussels Noord train station, and found a taxi. Brussels is in the french-speaking part of Belgium, and we found a taxi driver who - while being very helpful - didn't know all that much English, and who had only been to Brugge once before. Yet he knew very well that the ride from Brussels Noord to Brugge would set us back at least 200 Euro, but we didn't have much choice, so we set off. It was now approximately 25 minutes to midnight, and we hadn't eaten since two thirty, so we were hungry, tired, and had very little patience left. With our luck, the taxi driver didn't have a GPS, and asked us if we had a map of exactly where we were going. Dude was very helpful and nice, and tried to stir up a conversation - first asking if we could speak french, and then proceeded to practice his English, which was a cool thing to do, all things considered. In our state, though, we were not very interested in conversations which went like "What you do? I drive taxi. What you do?" - and that's not dissing the guy at all - he really did his best and was a good guy. Having said that, there were several times during the 100 km or so that I doubted we'd make it to Brugge at all. It was heavy fog, yet dude was rollin' at a cruising speed of 150 km/h, zig-zagging through lines of trucks and trailers.

When we finally made it to Brugge, our driver had to stop and ask some local kids where our hotel was. Since he couldn't speak flemish, he had to get directions in English, also a second time from a policeman, but at last we arrived at Hotel Navarra. 250 Euros was what the taxi ride ended up costing. At the hotel, the very nice - and English-speaking - night clerk could inform us that it was too late to get any food from the hotel restaurant, but there were open snack bars and such closer to the market. So we unloaded our stuff, and went food-shopping at half past midnight. 200 meters or so away from the hotel, we located an all-night diner, and got some local deli from a very nice older gentleman. Then it was light out!

The original plan was to stay in Brugge until Thursday and then take the rest of the week off on vacation in Brussels, but after this there's no way we're gonna spend more time in Belgium than we absolutely have to. It's now coming up on 4:30 PM on Monday, and we still don't have our baggage. This afternoon, we're gonna see if we can book a flight back on Thursday instead of Sunday. It's gonna cost us, but it's worth it. If I ever hear about Brussels again, it'll be too soon.

Finally....

...The Rock has come back to......

No wait....that would be the opening phrase of a Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson promo ca. 2001. Finally, we're back from Oslo would be more suitable.

Going to Oslo rules and stuff, seeing as how we've got both friends and relatives in O-town and the surrounding areas. Also, I'm born and raised a mighty stone's throw southwest from Oslo, so I'm always going to have a special relationship to our Capitol. Not to mention the multitude of awesome stores, restaurants and concert experiences the town has to offer.....

That being said, there's no way I'd want to live and work there. First of all, you'd have to make a whole lot more than in the rest of the country to accomodate the same living standards, being that the housing prices are insane. For the asking price of a crappy 60-80 square meter apartment in Driveby Avenue, Gangland, Eastern Oslo, you can get a house ten minutes drive from downtown Trondheim. Second, Karl Johan, the main street of Oslo and hence the main street of Norway, is screwed up beyond all that's reasonable. From Egertorvet and down to the railway station, it's an unholy mix of drug dealers, beggars and prostitution. From Egertorvet and up to the Castle, it's still beggars, but since they widened the street from Lille Grensen to Universitetet, it's been a haven for every loser with a motorcycle, for some reason. So now, it's a line-up-of-losers sporting black leather jackets, invisible suitcases and camo pants, who stroll around admiring each other's bikes and trying their very best to look hard-ass. Why in the blue hell would anyone think that this is the way to portray our main street?

Third, getting FROM Oslo by airplane is quite an ordeal, being that Oslo airport Gardermoen is possibly the worst airport I've had the misfortune of using on a regular basis. People tell me that the Paris airport(s?) suck, but I haven't been there. I do know that the Heathrow and Gatwick dual disaster is worse than Gardermoen, but there you've got the added misfortune of occasionally arriving at Heathrow and leaving from Gatwick, which ain't no picnic. Zero information, zero service, and zero signs. London airports blow.

But I digress - back to Gardermoen. The two major reasons for Gardermoen's suction are 1) design and 2) security. Unlike almost any other major airport constructed since the sixties, Gardermoen isn't constructed with all the gates organized around a central hub, so as to minimize distance traversed inside the complex, but is an outstretched construction, with international and domestic flights in opposite sides of the building. So; if you've got a connecting flight abroad, get ready to walk for a while. O'Hare airport in Chi-town - the biggest airport in the world (at least as of 2001), requires far less walking than Gardermoen, which should tell you something about the synaptic function and overall qualifications of the douchebags in charge of design and construction of Oslo airport.

And then we have the issue of the Gardermoen airport security, which is WAY blown out of proportion. When you enter the realm of the Overlords of Security, you first have to pass through a maze the dimensions of which I haven't seen outside of Dulles before you get to the Violation Stations. Invariably, only two of the 10-15 metal detectors will be open during rush hour, so as to piss off more people. Before you get to pass the metal detectors, you've got to take off your jacket, belt, shoes etc. and put it in small containers, walk on command and ship your belongings, walk through the metal detector, hope you don't get pulled out of the line for "random inspection", and watch helplessly while all your stuff is being thrown off the conveyor belt and onto the floor of the transfer area, 'cause there's no room to put your shit back on at the other end of the security area. All the while you're being watched by some epic weekend-educated, former convict, high-school-dropout, leopard-patterned sex-shop handcuff-toting, Maglite-wielding Rent-A-Cops. I massively disapprove.

10 things I miss the most from France

Here it is .


1-that's obvious and not very original: family and friends. Even if we come back from time to time it's really difficult to meet everybody. I've lost many contacts since I'm gone and no es bueno.

2-French TV. Seems stupid but there were lots of program that I really liked to watch. Especially the french news channel. It's definitely not the same to watch CNN or the BBC.

3-French supermarkets. Why the Norvegian grossery stores are so small ? and even when they are big you find exactly the same things than in the small ones. Choice is a word that norvegians definitely don't know.

4-Almost the same: Big malls. Norvegian malls suck !!! "Let's go to this mall" "Oh but the shops are exactly the same than in the previous one !" "yes but you had to drive to go to this one !"

5-Grass football fields- I guess it's a matter of climate but playing football in an artificial field is definitely not the same !!! (and don't talk about gravel fields)

6-Cheap beers-Damn alcohol is expensive in Norway!!! (and the roads are bad) And I really like beer !!! ( Football and beer fan, I should learn Norvegian to be able to read Pondus)

7-Warm summer- It's cold in Norway isnt'it ?? It's really cool to hang out in Paris in july and august when everybody's gone (except the tourists of course).

8-The subscription card for the cinema- You can say whatever you want but 15 euros per month to see as many movies as you want, that's really cool. The bad things : Most of the time the movies are doubled in french.

9-Pizzas: They are so much better in France (Italian way)

10- Versailles: This city is so beautiful. I have so many great memories there. It's always a great pleasure to go back. I just like the atmosphere.



To conclude the things that I definetely don't miss

1-the job market: really bad for 20 years now and even if you're lucky enough to find a job, you will be underpaid

2-security: It's strange how you easily forget that feeling of unsafety when you're in Norway.