<< June 5, 2005 >>
whew for a minute there

it just didn't add up.

the strangeness started when i landed, and a lot of people stayed on the plane. i got off, went through customs, and then went to look at the departures to see what gate my connection was at. strangely, there were no flights to CDG listed. i went through security, and then noticed that my flight had gotten in 90 minutes early, and my connection wasn't leaving for another six hours. there was free wireless in the departures lounge, so i thought i'd see if there was an earlier flight to paris that i might be able to get on.

"that's strange," i thought. "there are no flights from shannon to paris. maybe shannon isn't the name of dublin's airport, and i'm still supposed to be on that plane!"

it certainly explained why the airport was so small, among other things.

so i pack up my laptop and try to find the departure gates. the plane i was on is still there, but there's nobody at the gate and the door is locked! i see another aer lingus plane at another gate, maybe there is someone at that gate. no, it's not even at a gate.

at this point i realized that my day is going to be even more exciting than i originally anticipated.

i walk back to my gate, and there is someone there! i run over, and tell him that i'm still supposed to be on that plane. fortunately, they're still waiting for one person and i get on without incident.

the thing that's still bothering me is this: the guy at the departures gate, and the people at security all looked at my boarding pass, yet none of them mentioned that the airport i was at wasn't on the boarding pass.

also i think i was the only person on the flight not wearing any green.

new jsb tour dates.

<< June 5, 2005 >>
wish you were here

the excitement did not stop in ireland.

i made it to paris without further incident. i had the address of my hotel in an email from my coworker who was in paris a few weeks ago. i was just going to take a taxi (i hadn't done any research into how to get from the airport to the hotel), but that email said there was a TGV station right by the hotel. so i asked someone, and 5 or 10 minutes later i finally found out how to get a train ticket, and got on a train.

the train ride went smoothly. i didn't miss my stop, and i easily found the way to my hotel. only problem was, there was no reservation for me. a few minutes of email investigations later, i discover that i'm not staying at that hotel. i devise a train route to get me to the location of my new hotel, and set off.

strangely enough, almost the same thing happened when i went to new jersey.

the bad thing about the new hotel is that it's somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes away from our customer's site. the good news is that it's more or less in the city, so i set out on foot for a little sight seeing.

i was getting pretty tired of walking, and it may have been approaching midnight (i wasn't sure my iPod's clock was right - it was still pretty light out at 10:15 or so) so i decided to try and take the metro back to the hotel.

the only problem is nobody had explained the different lines to me, so i had no idea how to interpret the signs in the station. i walked into a station, walked around it inside for a while, and then the next thing i knew i was outside again. eventually i found another station, and luckily enough i found the train i wanted to take, and now i can go to sleep.

i imported 3 months worth of pictures, here are the only two worth posting:

i wish they both came out a little better.