Friday, April 27, 2007
I left directly from the office and headed to Pearson via the airport. I arrived at the international Air Canada terminal to see Erika and the girls (and Neda, our nanny who was also coming along for the trip) having just pulled up themselves to the curb in their own limo. Talk about timing. Dave and his wife Charmain were there as well.
Unfortunately there was an astronomically-long lineup in order to check in our bags for the flight. After getting our boarding passes printed up at the adjacent kiosks, Erika got into the line while I kept he kids busy and happy. They were both wearing their Healys/roller-skate shoes, and Pearson is a great place for doing that sort of thing. Erika and co. were in line for about an hour, so it is just as well we came early in order to get our flight.
Managed to have a pleasant, relaxing dinner in the hour remaining prior to boarding once we had got through customs.
The flight itself was simply long. We flew economy on an older plane, one which had not been fitted with personal in-flight entertainment systems. Luckily I had brought along a personal DVD player for the kids to watch movies on to help keep them occupied when they were not colouring or doing other things to amuse themselves. We all had seats in the same numeric row, but despite this the seating was staggered so that the seats for all six of us were not in line with each other. I managed to switch with a woman in the row in front of us so that at least one parent could sit beside the kids. Unfortunately this put me behind some bald-headed guy who perennially put his seat back, even wen he didn't need to for sleeping, putting the top of his seat about six inches from my nose. I had bought a blue flight cushion prior to the flight which wrapped around my neck, but even with this extra creature comfort, I still couldn't fall asleep. The girls thankfully managed to sleep for much of the flight, as did Erika and Neda. I ended up watching Dreamgirls (very enjoyable) from a tilt-down CRT situated a few rows in front of me, as well as part of The Red Violin, which was hard to watch as the video flickered out of synch every few seconds.
This time we flew to Munich, which, being further west, must have tacked on extra time to our flight over and above what we would have had if we had instead flow through Frankfurt or Paris International airports. Getting off of the plane was delayed substantially as Annie was sick just as the plane was landing, and Vanessa had lost her braces. No luck with the latter unfortunately, which will be a costly replacement when we return home.
Getting through Munich airport was not fun. One sick kid, and another customs check to go through, which was much more thorough than usual for us. Our connection time for the next flight was very close, and we thought for certain we had missed the flight thanks to the delays. But when we got to our gate we found that thanks to our friends, they were holding the flight for us. We got on the much more comfortable Lufthansa plane and flew the remaining leg to Nice Airport.
Labels: Air Canada, flying, Lufthansa, Munich, Nice Airport
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Traveling to Boston in order to present at another conference, this time JoAnn Hackos' "Content Management Strategies/DITA North America Conference 2007" which is being held at the The Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. I am there to present "AMD's Experience Planning and Implementing a DITA CMS”, which is the same title as the presentation Graydon and I gave in Frankfurt, but which has evolved over subsequent presentations I have done in San Jose, Austin, and at a SIG group in Toronto. In the end what started out primarily as Graydon's talk has been morphed into something that's more to my speaking style and depth of knowledge, and is (I hope) tailored more to the broad spectrum of people who tend to come to these conferences, ranging from those who are investigating DITA to those who are already well under way in their own implementation who want to compare notes with others.
The flight to Boston was set to leave at 9am, so I ordered an airport taxi to pick me up from home at 6:45am. Got to the airport, used a ticket kiosk to get my ticket, and despite the crowds, breezed through U.S. Customs in next to no time. Settled down for about an hour before the boarding time at Gate 164 with a Starbucks drink at the latest Scientific American. We all boarded the small Embraer jet that seats two to a side, and luckily I managed to get a pair of seats all to myself. The flight in general was uneventful, save for it being the first time I have been in a plane that has taken off in thick fog – I counted one, two, three seconds once we took off into the air and nothing could be seen of the ground. When I was allowed to I happily donned my Bose noise-canceling headphones (a recent acquisition from my last trip to Austin) and listened to tunes on my iPod for the short, one hour flight.
Landed in Boston just over an hour later. Got into a somewhat rickety old cab that constantly beeped a warning signal for something along with a cabbie who was a crusty but friendly. After a $25 cab ride I was dropped off at the grand entrance of the Fairmont Copley Plaza, a luxury hotel that belongs to the same chain as the Royal York hotel back in Toronto. Past a pair of gilded lions and an empty dog house (that apparently houses the canine "ambassador" to the hotel) and inside to the reception desk, where I got the keys to my room. After getting my keys (the now ubiquitous plastic entry key card) I stopped and took in my surroundings: much gilding and mirrors, with a ceiling painted with a blue sky. Early 20th century fittings, a grand old clock standing in a corner, and ballrooms which truly earned the moniker of "Grand". Clearly an old, established hotel.
Got to my room on the fifth floor, which was equally grand: nice rich wood furnishings, washroom with marble tiling, and room for a single king size bed and a comfy chair in the corner. The desk that I am writing this on sports a hands-free phone, a quad of electrical outlets that pops up from the upper-right corner of the desk, and a Ethernet jack/cord for the Internet connection, which is not free, but at $13.95 Cdn is no more expensive than usual at the place that charge for access. Should make for a comfortable way to spend the next few days in Boston. Despite the supposedly luxury, the hotel was missing some things I have come to expect at other hotels, such as a pen and pad for writing notes on, and a simply flyer or two that could give me a free simple map of the city and what's on. The working safe was nice though.
Once I had settled in, I pulled up Google Maps on my laptop and figured out where the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was in comparison to where I was staying. It was just about a mile down Huntington Street, so I determined to walk there and take in the sights along the way.
Labels: Boston, cab, cabbie, DITA, Embraer, Fairmont Copley Plaza, flying
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