Czajkowski

Táim sa bhaile – I’m home !

Finally got back into my parents house last night at 8:30pm after 107.5 hours travelling! The last leg of the journey seemed to drag on for ever.  Getting the train from Euston to Wolverhampton, started off an hour late as the driver was late from a previous journey.  I’ve never had the opportunity to use Virgin Trains, but I will in future! Free wifi and free food and drink I think the later was because the driver was late! Not bad! So 3 hours down the road to Wolverhampton and had to wait there for 3.5 hours in the cold for the 5:45 train to Holyhead!  At this stage I can’t sleep and the waiting room is already full so back to doing more laps of a train station. Yay for phone being charged so I can tweet/rant and keep somewhat sane!

Next train and more free wifi and again free food as they felt bad that so many of had been waiting, which was damn decent of them.  I’ve been really impressed with the kindness shown to people travelling and the majority (bar some of the BAA staff) have been really really helpful. By the time I got to Holyhead I have to say I was pretty exhausted.  I envy people who can just curl up and nod off anywhere! Unfortunately the train I got or more fortunately as it was the only one I could get, got me there 4 hours before the ferry left, but I really didn’t care I was that bit closer to getting home.

Having moved over here a few weeks ago, hard to believe just 6 weeks ago, having a boss that was understanding about the whole situation really helped so I didn’t start to freak out over not working when I was meant to be working.

The ferry thankfully went swiftly only 90 mins so I’ll be looking at this option again in the future! Docking in Dublin port and being greeted by snow and fog made me less happy, hundreds of people trying to get the bus or a taxi out of the place! I eventually got a taxi to Heuston (train ) station, what normally would have been a 7 quid taxi turned into a 25 quid taxi! Slight rip off but it was heavily snowing and to be honest at this point in time I really didn’t care. I wanted to get on the train my sister had booked for me at 4.

Onto the final stage, what could possibly go wrong……….. I need to stop saying that! A 3 carriage train instead of it’s usual 7 was there for Limerick, and hundreds of people tried to get on it! instead of the 2.5 hours it took 4.5! At one point we broke down or just stopped for half an hour, we’re not sure as nobody was told anything I really considered getting out and ringing my dad to come get me! So close and yet stuck outside Limerick for 30 mins! Finally got in and my dad was there to get me and bring me home to Castleconnell! YAY! home!

Only took 107.5 hours from Bath to Castleconnell. Suffice to say all I did today was SLEEP!!!!!! At least I made it home, others can’t say the same thing just yet and hopefully they will!

I’ve a sneaking suspicion my life is like an episode of Fawlty Towers lately, what can go wrong does go wrong and while it can appear to be funny when looking back at it, it definitely is not while the crazies is happening!

Now that I work in the UK I have to plan to go back to Ireland for events such as birthdays and Christmas and special occasions.  I figured it would be easy enough, book a flight in advance and not end up getting too badly ripped off due to the silly season that is Christmas where prices get inflated. I decided to go by plane rather than boat as I thought a 12 hour journey between getting to the ferry and getting the actual crossing would be too long so in theory paying a little more for the flight for a shorter journey from home in UK to home in IE made a lot of sense… again IN THEORY!

To kick the story off there is one thing you need to know, to understand  and to pay attention to: I HATE SNOW! It’s a massive inconvenience your clothes get wet, it’s cold and it causes no end of grief and delays car crashes  and last year I ended up falling between ice and snow twice on my noggin so I really do not like the stuff! Now that we’re clear on that I can continue.

Saturday kicked off the day with me trying to get to Heathrow airport from Bath where I had been working for the week, knowing the weather was bad with snow and my flight leaving at 7pm I decided to get the bus earlier on in the day so I booked a bus for 12, when I woke up and saw all of the snow in Bath I have to say I was a bit sickened I knew full well things were not going to go well.  I tried to ring a taxi to collect me, none would come up the hills, so not a good start.  Packed up bags and walked the 1.5 miles to the train station with my bags. Great way to work off a fry up!

The bus was meant to take 2.5 hours, it took 4, when we were 2 hours into the journey we started to hear Heathrow had been closed, by 3 hours into the journey we were seeing signs on the road saying the airport had closed.  The bus driver explained to us he was taking us to the central station as that was as far as he could bring us.  Walking in the door to central station and it was jam packed with nobody knowing what to do as national express was closing down some of its routes and people were standing around not know where to go or who to ask.  I just went straight to terminal one as in theory my flight was still going.  I literally just walked into terminal one saw the chaos and my phone beeped. Flight canceled to Shannon. Well feck! Rang a mate in Shannon straight away and gave her my details to rebook, figured doing that asap was better than trying to figure anything else out.  Booked bags into storage and waiting on a call letting me know I had an alternative flight for the next day.

Again, the sheer chaos wasn’t really evident at that time, lots of people on laptops and phones trying to rebook, the queue for hotel accommodation had about 30 people in it. That queue never died down! I really thought it would be a bit packed, but nothing prepared me to see how busy the place was. Hundreds of people in queues at multiple desks with the queues getting mixed up so when people tried to move others were getting angry thinking they were jumping the queues. Others were asleep on trollies with their luggage in queues as the counters were not open and they weren’t budging in case they did open or if they were lucky to find someone who may be able to answer their questions.

Seeing this and knowing I had a flight rebooked I just went to the bar, I had my laptops and phone + charger so I was ok what else did I need. The restaurants were full to the brim, with signs on most saying 1hour wait for food, or food sold out in some places. It was interesting to see how willing some people were to share a tables and others were just being grinches! rude obnoxious people who just didn’t want to share their space.  Did they not realise we were all in the same boat together! I let some folks join me and it was nice to have some company to be honest it was also the only way to get information was if people pooled their resources together.  As helpful as BAA were, there was a distinct lack of information being given out to people  over the last 3 days, they’d say one thing, our airlines would say another. Frustrating for all those involved.

I’ve never bought the internet at an airport but did this once and I’m really glad I did , I was able to rebook and look up information as there was nothing being conveyed in the airport, there was more information on news channels or on twitter than there was inside Heathrow, more annoying was when they did try and communicate with people they put the quietest person over the loud speaker and nobody could understand what they were told leading to people getting very angry and rather vocal about it which then upset others and in some case frightened kids. I can only imagine how hard it was for people with kids, only so long a kid can be patient in a that kind of atmosphere.  The elderly or disabled equally found it hard to find information out, the queue for disabled people was so long it merged into check in flight lines leading to more confusion.  Many elderly people didn’t know how to rebook their flights as they didn’t book them in the first place, there  were a few just crying and there was little anyone could really do to help them.

Annoying at 11pm they shut the pubs which meant hundreds of people then left there and went down to the ground floor to try and get space to sleep, or a step on a stair to sleep, people were sleeping in the toilets sitting beside the power sockets in the bathrooms to charge their phones so they could communicate to others what the status of their travels were.   I went to the ground floor as I found a space and could charge laptop, I lasted till 2am at which point I was frozen and could barely move, I knew my back was close to giving out on me as well which I really couldn’t deal with.  Also the down side of traveling on your own is if you need to go anywhere even to get a drink you’ve to pack your stuff up and bring it with you.  It just makes it more difficult! Going back up to departures level I saw lots of people had gotten foil blankets, none had been given out on other floors! All I could do to warm up for an hour was literally do laps of  T1 I eventually did try and sleep, but on cold tiles my back was giving out to me so went back to walking around. Made my way to Aer Lingus desk and I found some fellow Irish folks to talk to.  This worked out well I could leave my stuff with someone but we could also share my laptop to find out information and book hotels!

We set up camp around my laptop which was rather fortunate as a good few people were in need of trying to figure out a plan B. There was a lovely elderly couple who didn’t know how to rebook as their son had done it for them in the first place and it was now 5am and they wanted to get on another flight so I was able to help, few others were able to rebook or book a hotel so it worked out at least till a member of BAA staff told me to remove my laptop from behind the desk as that was the only place I could find that I could charge it or she would call the police! How unhelpful , unnecessary and just bitchy of her! There was no need to move me I wasn’t in the way and I was providing help that nobody else was, bar the fact I was exhausted and not in the mood to fight I’d have royally told her where to go!  BAA were rather adamant that people leave! But where were they to go! Many had no place to go, hotels were too expensive, paying for a place wasn’t an option for some people, lack of time was another factor! But still BAA and now the police were asking people to leave!   As I left the airport I saw a human barrier of police and BAA folks not allowing people into T1, many had young kids, most were told by their airlines to go to the airport! Again the conflicting information was frustrating and not helping anyone!

After that I packed up and went to the hotel I’d been fortunate to get that didn’t cost an arm, leg, kidney and spleen! Most of the hotels prices had gone up but I really just wanted to sleep. I needed to sleep and I needed to rest my back. Falling into bed and sleeping till 6 was heaven! Getting up at 10 and trying to find food was entertaining, the hotel was full and many others were there camping out in the lobby ordering food so they couldn’t be moved, I got breakfast lunch and dinner at 12 that night! and slept again till 9! Who knew I could sleep so much!

So now it was Monday and I had a flight for Tuesday, checked out of hotel as that was the only one I could get for one night.  I ended up chatting to a group of American students which passed the day away. 6pm came and I get another email and sms that my flight has been canceled and I can’t get on any flight before Friday! Not really an option so plan C kicks into place! FERRY! So taxi back to airport, tube from there to Euston and from there I can get a train to Wolverhampton wait 4 hours and get a connecting train to Holyhead!

This is the plan but for the last 90 mins I’ve sat on the train hoping it will move, but there is now no train driver! As I said what can go wrong goes wrong and perhaps in a week or so I will laugh about all of this, but right now all I want is my bed! Wake up to some superquinn saussages, and a mug of Barrys Tea and have a hot shower!

Happy Christmas where ever you are and how ever you get there!

It’s hard to believe I’m now in the UK 5 weeks, it’s been a whirl wind month with lots to do and see and that’s just the house hunting! Looking back at it now it’s hard to believe I got on a plane less than 24 hours after I got home from UDS and went looking at houses I must have been mad.  I was rather fortunate that a lovely dear friend and her family collected me from Heathrow as I honestly don’t know how I would have gotten from there down to Farnham.

The weekend I arrived it was Guy Fawkes night, aka build a bonfire and set it on fire! So being the token tourist we went to the Farnham session lead by candles up a hill and into the grounds of a castle, it was rather pretty and something different to experience.

I viewed a few places to live that week, some places were dives! worse than any student accommodation I’d ever seen and others were fine but you’d never even hear back from them, rather like job hunting all over again but for a place to live! I’ve eventually found a place to live sharing with 6 others from all over the place, but one of the house mates works in redhat who uses debian, what are the flipping chances eh!

So I moved to the UK to work for Sirius, and it’s been an excellent move and proved to be rather interesting, some of the things I’m working on now is organising the UK ODF Plugfest to happen in February, help organise an education conference happening in April to do with open source and education. Behind the scenes I’m working with some education groups and other types of groups in the UK talking to them about using open source. Everyone in the office has been so friendly and helpful which makes things a lot easier! Having a boss that is understanding when it comes to booking time off to go back to Ireland due to flight costs or snow issues is a bonus and something I’m not used to at all so it is appreciated.

Things I’ve had to get used to, STERLING! and not converting it to euro or go crazy at prices, trains, how they run and how to get home and to work via them when they don’t run or stop elsewhere! I am fascinated by the train folks, the people who read on the train standing up, answering emails, or applying make up, how they do this when the train is moving and randomly stops is beyond me.

I don’t know what the next 5 weeks or 5 months will hold for me in the UK, but it’s going to be interesting no matter what and I’m going to enjoy it and meet some new people and get to meet others I’ve been talking to via irc or ml , we plan on organising a Ubuntu UK rugby pub day! so do keep posted!

Well PGDay EU is almost over and it’s been a fun and interesting few days.  This is the my first trip to a conference for work as one of my colleagues is presenting a talk and giving two training sessions on PostGIS. It’s been an intersting trip with the craziness happening before I left the UK, also it’s a lot warmed over here and while there is snow, their trains do work and the hotel is massive that we don’t actually have to leave the place.

The trip started on Sunday leaving my home where I;m now living in the UK in Aldershot, turns out flying from Stanstead is a large pain in the rear end in trying to get there! Getting the bus to Stanstead meant leaving at 9am but I thought it wouldn’t be too bad as I’d get to see some places while travelling and I did. So flying out at 8pm and getting to the aipoort at 2 you can only imagine how bored one can get very quickly. Armed with mini 9 and usb with some things to watch I was sorted as I found a chair that had a power supply or so I thought, it wasn’t charging. I decided I’d seen and done all things before departures I may as well go through security and have a drink.

So now comes my rant!  As everyone knows when travelling and bringing liquids on board you need to put them in a see through bag and put them through the scanner seperately from yoru bag and laptop and shoes ( depending on which airport you fly from) When it was my turn I had all my things on top of the desk for the security guard to push them into the scanner however upon seeing my clear see through ZIPPED up bag he said the bag was not correct  I was told if I questioned the security guy at Stanstead airport over the see through bag he won’t allow me on the flight! Grrrrr All I wanted to know was how the bag I used recently in Orlando, Newark, Shannon all was fine but he had an issue with it! *numpty* !  So I had to leave the long queue go outside go to boots pay 20pence for a ZIP LOCK bag and put my stuff in it and go back and join the queue.

It seems crazy that one cannot ask a simple question, but you get told you may be refused your flight! It was frustrating and rather upsetting to be honest, I do fully appreciate the guy had a job to do, however his attitude was just all wrong.

When Mark arrived at the airport we had one more cider before the flight to Stuttgart, talk about efficiency, the flight arrived 30 mins early.  I was carrying my Ubuntu bag with me and on two occasions from the time we landed to our hotel people came up to us talking about open source what are the chances and they weren’t even going to the conference.

PGDay kicked off with a keynote from Simon Phipps, who as always delivered an insightful and witty talk which was a good way to start the morning off. Not knowing a lot about PostgreSQL I found some of the talks to be really interesting and informative however some did  go well over my head. I found one of the best talks came from Bruce Momjian the way he delivered his talk made it very easy to follow and it was rather interesting plus he used Ubuntu.

I have to hand it to the organisers it was very well run the venue, the Millennium Hotel was a great venue, one part hotel, one part conference center with a cinema and 2 theaters in it with 19 bars and restaurants so lots to see and chose from including the Irish bar!

Now to go back to the UK, I’ve not seen much of Stuttgart so shall have to return at some point to see more of it, but it’s been a very nice experience and the people were very friendly, always a bonus!