Category: Europe
A Day in London
I travelled to Europe yesterday for a series of presentations on the presidential election. I’ll be keeping an online diary over the next week for my stops in London, Brussels and Amsterdam.
The Flight
The flight to London was unevental except for a major scare at the outset that had nothing to do with flying. My laptop, on which resides the final version of my presentation, crashed and began issuing me scrary messaages. The last time this happened, a week ago, it took me 2 days to get my data back. If I’ve lost the presentation, life is going to be very difficult when I land. So, I stashed the laptop away and prayed. Fortunately, the problem seemed to go away when I logged back in at my hotel. I immediately saved the presentation in a Lockbox folder. Whew.
The Hotel
I’m staying at the Radisson Blu in Covent Gardens. Each of the 3 or 4 times I’ve come to London, I’ve stayed in Covent Gardens. It is one of my favorite places in the world, waling distance to the West End for plays, Trafalgar Square for iconic London and St. Martin in the Fields, my single favorite stop in the city. I have not stayed in a Radisson in probably 15 years since a horrific night in Binghampton, NY, when the fire alarm went off 3 times over the course of the night. My son, Danny, who was 7 at the time, was traumatized. We vowed never to stay in a Radisson again.
Back to Berlin….Without my luggage
Arrived today for my second visit to Berlin. This time, I’m accompanied by my daughter, Bridget. It will be a combination of business and pleasure. I have business meetings in Berlin, but will go to Paris for the weekend, for my first visit to the City of Lights.
The first change I noticed from my last visit was how expeditious the arrival process was. We had a layover in Munich where we showed our passport. But there were no customs declarations forms to fill out. Just show the passport and move right on through. Berlin was even more expeditious, actually too expeditious. We just followed the crowd off the plane, expecting to be herded to some large immigration line, followed by a customs line. In so doing, we walked right past baggage claim and the next thing we knew we were outside security without our luggage. Uh oh. I knew that couldn’t be good. Going back through the exist would probably have caused them to shut down the whole airport.
Sure enough, we had to go to a special office at the other end of the airport. After about an hour wait, we were told that our luggage didn’t arrive anyway. Over to another office at another end of the airport. To my relief, they told me that the luggage was in Munich. Didn’t make the connection, but would be delivered to the hotel in the evening. And that’s the situation, as it exists. Hope they are right.
Thanks to an unbelievably organized wife, I had a change of close in my carry on, so no stress…..yet.
