Three countries in one day
I got up in Scotland, then proceeded to a meeting in France, and finally fell asleep in Holland. We took a 6:45 am flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport (yawn). It turned out to be one of those little prop planes.
Upon arrival in France, I was disappointed not to get a stamp in my passport. Apparently they don’t do that within Europe anymore. Then I tried to get some euros. I went an exchange booth that said it was operated by American Express. But they wouldn’t take my AmEx card! When I offered a Visa card, the woman said the fee was 7.50 euros, and I might do better at the adjacent cash machine. So much for service. I tried the cash machine, and found that it was difficult to enter my PIN because I know it by the letters, but he keypad only had numbers. I got it on the second try. After all that, the receipt I got didn’t even indicate how much commission I was charged, so I don’t know if I got a better deal than the 7.50 euros.
Then it turned out we had to cool our heels for a couple hours waiting for our French sales guy to pick us up. My British colleague had a cup of coffee and commented that it was actually quite good. Even in the French airport they have good coffee!
By the time we got picked up and driven to the other side of Paris, we only had time for a 30-minute lunch at a little bistro. Ironically, our meeting was very close to Orly Airport (which is on the other side of Paris from Charles de Gaulle), but flights from northern Europe don’t land at Orly.
The security procedure was strange. We ran our bags through an X-ray machine and had to turn in our passports during the meeting, so it seems like tight security (they do this at the more paranoid Asian factories also). And yet, the whole air of the place was not one of concern for intellectual property or corporate espionage. It was basically bureaucratic. This was security theater at its best—just look like you are doing something, go through the motions, and it’s OK. Europe is like that (and increasingly, the US too).
It was a grueling, 3.5-hour meeting in a stuffy room. They did not serve us any liquid—no coffee, no water, no tea, nothing. Weird. It was actually my first business meeting in France; I wonder if they’re all kind of like this.
For complicated reasons, I had to fly to Amsterdam and stay overnight there, rather than going straight to my actual destination in Holland—Eindhoven. The next morning, I took the train to Eindhoven.
I love Dutch, by the way. It is tantalizingly close to German, but with some clear influences from English and Scandinavian languages. The net effect is that I can pick my way through reading it, but cannot pronounce it at all—the letters have different sounds in Dutch—and can’t understand it very well either.
For example, take the name of the main international airport in Amsterdam: Schiphol. In German, this would be pronounced approximately “sheep-hole.” But in Dutch, it sounds more like “skipple.” Or the name of the city where I transferred trains: Duivendrecht. The “ui” consonant cluster is not allowed in German, but would be pronounced something like “oo-ey” (rhymes with “gooey”). In Dutch, Duivendrecht sounds like “Dowvendrecht,” where the first syllable rhymes with “cow” and the “ch” is a soft sound made with the tongue against the back of the mouth. (This means, by the way, that the German, Dutch, and English words Haus, huis, and house are all pronounced the same way. Note that Dutch does not capitalize nouns like German does.)
The airport hotel in Amsterdam turned out to be a challenge. First I had to take a shuttle bus from Schiphol to get there. There was a schedule posted; the bus was supposed to come every 20 minutes. It looked like I had some time, so I went inside to get some water (still thirsty after that weird French meeting). But when I came back, the bus arrival time came and went. Finally a bus came after another 20 minutes or so. But then it still took 30 minutes to drive to the nearby hotel because the driver had to stop and have a cigarette, and then stop again at another hotel. Sigh.
I finally dragged into my hotel at about 10 pm. When I got to my room, the key didn’t work. The light turned green, but I couldn’t turn the handle. I went back to the desk and told them this, and they sent a skeptical-looking desk clerk up with me to try it again. Indeed, it malfunctioned for her too, and she did some maneuver with the master key that seemed to fix it. She said brightly, “Now it’s working!” and I was the one to feel skeptical. Sigh.
But who cares—I just wanted to get to bed. Then I discovered that there was a vent in the bathroom making a continuous hissing sound. It wasn’t the fan, and it didn’t matter if the light was on or off. Even with the door closed, it was clearly audible in the room. I went to sleep anyway, but certainly heard it first thing in the morning. It had left a mild buzzing sound in my ears from listening to it all night. Sigh.
I was ready for this series of travel challenges to be over.
Upon arrival in France, I was disappointed not to get a stamp in my passport. Apparently they don’t do that within Europe anymore. Then I tried to get some euros. I went an exchange booth that said it was operated by American Express. But they wouldn’t take my AmEx card! When I offered a Visa card, the woman said the fee was 7.50 euros, and I might do better at the adjacent cash machine. So much for service. I tried the cash machine, and found that it was difficult to enter my PIN because I know it by the letters, but he keypad only had numbers. I got it on the second try. After all that, the receipt I got didn’t even indicate how much commission I was charged, so I don’t know if I got a better deal than the 7.50 euros.
Then it turned out we had to cool our heels for a couple hours waiting for our French sales guy to pick us up. My British colleague had a cup of coffee and commented that it was actually quite good. Even in the French airport they have good coffee!
By the time we got picked up and driven to the other side of Paris, we only had time for a 30-minute lunch at a little bistro. Ironically, our meeting was very close to Orly Airport (which is on the other side of Paris from Charles de Gaulle), but flights from northern Europe don’t land at Orly.
The security procedure was strange. We ran our bags through an X-ray machine and had to turn in our passports during the meeting, so it seems like tight security (they do this at the more paranoid Asian factories also). And yet, the whole air of the place was not one of concern for intellectual property or corporate espionage. It was basically bureaucratic. This was security theater at its best—just look like you are doing something, go through the motions, and it’s OK. Europe is like that (and increasingly, the US too).
It was a grueling, 3.5-hour meeting in a stuffy room. They did not serve us any liquid—no coffee, no water, no tea, nothing. Weird. It was actually my first business meeting in France; I wonder if they’re all kind of like this.
For complicated reasons, I had to fly to Amsterdam and stay overnight there, rather than going straight to my actual destination in Holland—Eindhoven. The next morning, I took the train to Eindhoven.
I love Dutch, by the way. It is tantalizingly close to German, but with some clear influences from English and Scandinavian languages. The net effect is that I can pick my way through reading it, but cannot pronounce it at all—the letters have different sounds in Dutch—and can’t understand it very well either.
For example, take the name of the main international airport in Amsterdam: Schiphol. In German, this would be pronounced approximately “sheep-hole.” But in Dutch, it sounds more like “skipple.” Or the name of the city where I transferred trains: Duivendrecht. The “ui” consonant cluster is not allowed in German, but would be pronounced something like “oo-ey” (rhymes with “gooey”). In Dutch, Duivendrecht sounds like “Dowvendrecht,” where the first syllable rhymes with “cow” and the “ch” is a soft sound made with the tongue against the back of the mouth. (This means, by the way, that the German, Dutch, and English words Haus, huis, and house are all pronounced the same way. Note that Dutch does not capitalize nouns like German does.)
The airport hotel in Amsterdam turned out to be a challenge. First I had to take a shuttle bus from Schiphol to get there. There was a schedule posted; the bus was supposed to come every 20 minutes. It looked like I had some time, so I went inside to get some water (still thirsty after that weird French meeting). But when I came back, the bus arrival time came and went. Finally a bus came after another 20 minutes or so. But then it still took 30 minutes to drive to the nearby hotel because the driver had to stop and have a cigarette, and then stop again at another hotel. Sigh.
I finally dragged into my hotel at about 10 pm. When I got to my room, the key didn’t work. The light turned green, but I couldn’t turn the handle. I went back to the desk and told them this, and they sent a skeptical-looking desk clerk up with me to try it again. Indeed, it malfunctioned for her too, and she did some maneuver with the master key that seemed to fix it. She said brightly, “Now it’s working!” and I was the one to feel skeptical. Sigh.
But who cares—I just wanted to get to bed. Then I discovered that there was a vent in the bathroom making a continuous hissing sound. It wasn’t the fan, and it didn’t matter if the light was on or off. Even with the door closed, it was clearly audible in the room. I went to sleep anyway, but certainly heard it first thing in the morning. It had left a mild buzzing sound in my ears from listening to it all night. Sigh.
I was ready for this series of travel challenges to be over.
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