Despite flying on a very regular basis, somehow I have never ever had the luxury of flying Club Europe. Well I did fly Club World last year from New York back to London (when we were unexpectedly treated to a free upgrade courtesy of British Airways).
But to be honest, I struggle to see the point of spending extra cash for the upgrade to Club Europe on a 1-2 hour short-haul flight within Europe (neither can I see my client voluntarily splashing out for it).
Last week’s travel was a rather lengthy one (being away for a total of six days), although not all (or actually almost none) of it work related.
The original plan was to go home just for the weekend to attend my school reunion (still struggle to get my head around the fact that it is 20 years since we graduated), however as plans changed, so did my travel itinerary. So instead my colleague and I flew out on Tuesday to attend the IAA (Internationale Automobil Ausstellung, aka Frankfurt Motor Show) the day after, courtesy of our German automotive client.
Well into my big batch of travels, last week saw me travelling to Sweden for a change. No, I don’t speak any Swedish (unless ‘Hej’ and ‘Tack’ counts as language knowledge), but luckily most Swedes speak really decent English, so communication isn’t too difficult.
Apart from a weekend in Stockholm many moons ago, I have never been to Sweden before I started working in my current job. In the past year I have had a few trips, however have not always had a chance to actually see anything. But what I have seen is very pretty and makes me want to go and see more of this country… so maybe a road trip at some point? We’ll see.
Everyone keeps telling me how beautiful Rome is. And I am not doubting this. But I can’t really comment on it. I have never been (yes I can’t quite believe I am saying that either)… well actually not true. I have been twice(ish).
I took a flight to and from Rome last year for a meeting nearby, however other than the airport and train station I have not seen a thing, so it does not count.
The other time I was just two years old… so again, probably not really worth counting…Since I can’t remember a thing (although some faded photos exist as proof).
As I already mentioned in last week’s post, I currently have a whole batch of weekly trips coming up. So it might not come as a huge surprise that this week started with another packed suitcase.
Compared to some of my other trips, this Monday morning did not start too bad. I had a relatively late flight (9.30 that is) from City Airport to Düsseldorf, so rather than getting a cab at the crack of dawn I opted for the train / DLR. Meaning I only had to get up around half an hour earlier than usual (as opposed to a 7 o’clock flight from Heathrow to Copenhagen next week that will see me get into a cab around 4am).
After weeks of hardly travelling, I am back to travelling hard with trips lined up every single week for the next six weeks (and counting). So to kick things off I had a trip to Germany, more specific Erfurt and Weimar.
Ever so often you find yourself in the right place at the right time. Such as last January. We had a 2 day trip to the vicinity of Hamburg and decided to take the opportunity visiting the newly opened Elbphilharmonie, which after years of delay finally opened three weeks prior.
So we booked ourselves into a hotel near the harbour, at the top end of the Reeperbahn. Within walking distance so to say.
The original plan was to walk along the harbour to the Elbphilharmonie, have a look around, see if we could get tickets for the viewing gallery and go for dinner afterwards. But what are plans, if not to change?
I have to admit it… not all my travel is work related. I do also travel for leisure… and absolutely love weekends away.
For a good two years I had regular trips to Austria (for work) and absolutely fell in love with Vienna. Before that I had only ever been to Vienna (and Austria for this matter) once, which was a good 15 years ago, maybe even longer.
But since my regular Austria trips have seized recently, every excuse will do to come back, as I fell heavily for Vienna.
So, when it came to choosing a location for a catch up with my friend, we very quickly opted for girly weekend in Vienna.
After all, what’s not to love about Vienna if you are a pair of coffee loving shopping addicts?
For the past year or so I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog. But somehow life always gets in the way and I never found the time to start.
Or to be more precise, I found the time to think about what I want my blog to look like, what I want to write about, even which photos I want to take / include and to start a long, very very long list of which blog posts to write … I just did not find (or make) the time to actually do it.
Somehow I had it in my mind that I could not start my blog with just a single post. I would need to prepare a number of blog posts and photos in advance before I even start setting up. Not sure this really makes much sense to anyone (although it did to me), so why not start slow and get this going.
So finally. MY VERY FIRST BLOG POST.
