Archive for the 'Abroad' Category
November 30th, 2007
(7 Votes)
As you may have noticed I traveled a lot this year and to conclude my voyages, earlier this month I spent almost a week in Istanbul, Turkey. This was the first trip ever abroad together with my work colleagues. The main purpose of the voyage was a Cisco Networking Academy conference, but somewhere on the way I’ve made some adjustments :).
Once I debarked the plane in Istanbul I realized I had a an absolutely wrong mindset about Turkey. It’s so different from any country I visited so far. During the days spent in Istanbul, I tried to cover as much as I could of this wonderful city. This city is unique. It’s the only city in the world that spreads over two continents. I’ve visited the Mosques, the old and new parts of the city, toured on the Bosporus, got lost, spent huge amounts of money shopping, made full use of my negotiation skills, ate the best food ever and chilled out at the river side.
October 31st, 2007
(4 Votes)
Somewhere during the last days of September, I got on a plane with my brother with destination Venice, Italy. This is the second time I’m visiting Italy this year. In January Rome and now Venice. I’ve been traveling a lot this year. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, I always wanted to “see the world”, but after returning from Rotterdam, last summer, I’m beginning to feel anxious only at the thought of leaving again. Rotterdam took it’s toll on my personal comfort and it’s gonna take a while till I will be happy to travel again.Nevertheless once I was on the plane, I was alright. The ride was smooth and the view just before landing was breathtaking: an endless waterline full of small boats with their sails glittering in the orange sunset. The airfield was just a few feet away from the water.
We checked in at a nice hotel in a small town near Venice and after a 20 minutes bus ride we were there: a big square filled with buses and cars. The place where land ended and water began. As the whole city is built on pylons over the water, the only way to get around Venice is trough its maze of narrow streets and channels. From now on we either walked or took a boat to get us from one place to another. It took us a while to get accustomed before we started to explore Venice. In the two days we would walk in and out of Venice, visit the islands and enter lots souvenir shops.
July 24th, 2007
(4 Votes)
I’m still tired from the transition party yesterday. We made a happy bunch over there, so many Romanians in one place again.
Now, it’s almost over, a few hours more and I will be on a plane back home. Right now I have an odd feeling in my stomach and mixed feelings … I’m so anxious to leave, in the last days I’ve been counting down the hours. I even went to buy a train ticket to Schipol a week before my departure.
I can’t say it’s been good or bad experience. I’ve been trough a lot and I keep telling myself I’m to blame for building the wrong expectations. What I can say it’s been nothing I imagined it to be.
July 19th, 2007
(2 Votes)
Planning
Going to Düsseldorf by car was my idea. Gwen was telling me about visiting a friend in Düsseldorf, by train. As I had a similar experience two years ago, I proposed to rent a car and have some fun together. The best part is that I came only with the idea. Martin and Gwen handled the rest (renting a car, checking gas prices, mapping routes).
Issues
Till Friday all was done, except a little thing that slipped our mind: Gwen doesn’t know to drive a stick-shift. Imagine: in the U.S., they actually give you the driver license on an automatic shift.
So, I was teaching Gwen about the “extra” pedal called the clutch. Things started OK, on the first try Gwen actually started the windshield wipers. After a nice test ride in the city all was prepared. We went home to pack and started our journey.
Well … not quite, a few meters of the parking lot Gwen managed to place the car in the middle of the road and because being stressed and all she couldn’t manage the fine moves of the clutch and gas pedal required to get the car moving forwards. OK, we moved … in small steps, hick-ups, engine dying, engine start, car shaking, hick-ups engine dying. As this kind of movement was killing the engine, building a long queue behind us and was not getting measurable results, I had to take over and drive a few blocks to a parking area.
July 8th, 2007
(1 Votes)
The return to Amsterdam was planned a week ago. I wanted to see the city again … see how much my perspective has changed. We got at the train station 2 hours later than we agreed up-on :). Typically! I think I got somewhat lazy in this 1,5 months. Waking up at 9, reaching the office at 10. I will have real problems re-accommodating once I get back home as Romania is also one hour ahead.
Well we got there eventually but the other party was also late. We enjoyed a smooth ride to Amsterdam Centraal mostly glancing out the windows and chatting. The city has pretty much unchanged in my eyes, except maybe for the huge number of people (mostly tourists) walking down the streets. I felt like in Bucharest … simply too crowded and too noisy. I wished I could visit some of the museums there, but our crowd was so undecided … I learned my lesson: having more than 4 people around when traveling is not a very good choice. Everyone wants to go somewhere else, everyone wants to eat something else, everyone has different ideas on how to achieve these and in the end nobody gets what he wants.
