The Long Awaited Day

February 13th, 2014

After quite a lengthy planning, finally the day arrived: we were ready to embark on a trip to the largest city in Europe: London. We have booked our flight already back in November last year, so we had nothing else to do, than print our boarding passes and try not to oversleep (the flight was scheduled to take off at 06:45 in the morning).

Wizz wingHaving the tickets booked so early, we managed to buy our round-trip flight for two persons with WizzAir from Cluj to Luton Airport for as low as 842RON (~€187), which included also one checked-in luggage. So far everything was great ;).

Due to the early departure time, we had woken up at 04:15 in the morning and after just about an hour and a half we have already passed the check-in process and were standing in line to embark the plane. Due to the deicing procedure, the plane took-off at around 07:10 and additionally we had a quite long flight. On top of that we could see hardly anything of the land below, so I was really glad they changed the Wizz-magazine since the last time I flew 🙂 . It was already around 08:10 (U.K. time) when we finally landed. I am saying “finally”, because the last few minutes were… well… “messy”, as the pilot also announced. We had to go through multiple layers of clouds and were approaching the runway in an angle which was far far away from straight… The whole experience, however, was actually OK, because by the time the plane really started to shake we got out of the cloud layer so everyone jumped to the windows to admire the beautiful, green, English countryside instead of worrying about the plane 😉 .

The next challenge was the long-long queue at the passport control gates. I think we stayed there about an hour, so our plans to do a quick tour of the city center just before lunch was slowly fading away… Despite of the long queue, our morale did not fall: we made a quick cash withdrawal (there are some “free” cash withdrawal machines which accept a lot of cards) and were ready to search for our bus to London.
National Express
Finding the right bus was also a piece of cake: there were some HUGE signs painted on the wall, about National Express who would take you to London Victoria station for as little as ₤10 round-trip. The buses start off from the coach station just outside the exit from bay number 10. Tickets can be purchased both inside the terminal and at the bus (there is no difference, the agent even accepts credit cards). We had a small issue here with the payment: although the sign said the trip only costs ₤10, this actually meant, that the whole round-trip costs ₤20 per person. (otherwise it costs ₤15 just one way, making the round trip cost ₤30). Luckily I have withdrawn enough money so I was able to pay without problems.

The last part of our trip was just to get on the bus, and get into London in the scheduled one hour and 15 minutes period… well, this is what we thought at least… Unfortunately there were some very heavy traffic jams in London, so by the time we actually arrived to London Victoria Coach Station, it was almost 13:00 (U.K. Time). The trip itself was full of surprises, though, we really got to know how unforgiving London traffic participants may be. The driver was funny, he took all the small challenges really well and made jokes about the other drivers double-crossing him…

By this time we were absolutely positive, that we were going to take the first city stroll soonest towards the evening, but we were actually glad that we arrived and we were ready to get in contact with the public transport system of London. But I am going to write about this whole tale in the following post…

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A Dutch Hotel

February 12th, 2014

One more thing was missing from my post-series about my trip to the Netherlands: some words about the hotel I stayed at while I was there (well apart from Tulip Inn in Eindhoven). I was advised to stay at a place, not far from the location I had to visit, called Hotel Bakker. It is a quiet little hotel in Vorden, a small city in the south-east of the Netherlands.

For me it was the first time I was in a “non-commercial”, local hotel in the Netherlands, so it was an interesting experience for me. I was actually surprised, that everyone spoke well English, but then again, I was in the Netherlands… who doesn’t speak English there? 🙂 . Anyway, the place was OK for the price they charged for a room. It was not as fancy as the life-savior hotel in Eindhoven, but it was clean, it had free WiFi and it had a very friendly scenery: the rooms were all on the ground floor, with a back door to a common grassy area, there were small ponds with rocky edges all offering a relaxing and calm atmosphere to chill down a bit after a busy day working.

On top of that, I ate dinner almost every evening at the hotel. The food was… well, I think this is what fine dining in the Netherlands means: a quantity of nicely prepared meal which you can actually eat in one go 🙂 (usually it is quite hard to eat up everything when one eats normal food). The good part is: I was always a bit hungry by the time I got back to the hotel, so the quantity and the quality of the food was just perfect ;).

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The Car Rental

February 4th, 2014

After a troublesome evening, but great night at the Eindhoven Airport hotel, the next day I was ready to pick-up my car that I reserved at one of the rental companies. This time almost everything went smoothly and I was on the highway to my destination in no time.
Citroen C4
I wrote almost, because there was still an issue with the car rental: they do no accept VISA Electron cards. The truth is, I have never tried to book a car using that card, but after using it everywhere when I had to travel (in Europe and in the U.S.) it did not even cross my mind, that they may not accept it. Anyway, when I showed them a MasterCard they were more than happy (although there were no big differences, because both are debit cards and both have chips integrated…). Anyway, this was a lesson that I quickly learned and used all the time while I was in the Netherlands: they like MasterCards more than VISA Electrons, so be prepared 😉 .

Maybe a few words about the car I was driving: a Citroen C4. I must say I was a bit worried about the usability of the controls, because, we have to admit, we are talking about an artistic little French piece of equipment here… To my surprise everything was in order (just like a VW or any other car I am used to), with just a touch of French art (just enough 🙂 ). Another great surprise was the built in GPS (although it took a while until I switched it to speak in English 🙂 ) which helped a lot during my quest to find my destination among the potato fields 😛 . The car looked and felt great… until the moment people started to pass me by real easily… Yes, yes it was an economy car I know, but still… why won’t it accelerate?? Bottom line, no matter how fancy equipment it has, I would not trade my 11 year old car for it. Period.

The next most important thing with the entire rental was the invoice: I really needed the VAT number of the company I work at to be present on the invoice. This is a cumbersome operation each time we ask for invoices in work related business, but we are used to it, so I tried to explain the agent, that maybe she can put it to comments or somewhere. Maybe I was a bit pushy, maybe not, she instantly replied, that she know how to fill in an invoice… “Well,… OK…”, I thought and left her to fill out the company data. I was assured that the invoice will be ready the next day and that it will be mailed to me. Guess what, it was not e-mailed. Instead, I had to search for it using my reservation number and download it. Guess what again: the VAT number was missing 🙂 . So, as one can imagine, I have sent them a request to correct this mistake, but, you guessed, no reply since then 😉 , although “Here at Ssst we value your opinion” as the questionnaire title (which I received instantly via e-mail obviously) says…

So, the car rental started up quite well, I had some minor issues, but the end seems a bit disappointing… I never had such problems with other companies… Lessons learned:

  1. Use MasterCards in the Netherlands
  2. An economy car IS an ECONOMY car, do not expect miracles here
  3. Make sure you see the invoice filled with your own eyes if possible, otherwise there might be problems…

Update: The invoice arrived after a few days. Everything was OK. They have won back a few points… 😉 .

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A Hard Trip

February 1st, 2014

Although I like traveling, I was not really enthusiastic about having to go to the Netherlands for few days (after just a few days notice). Additionally it was not a simple destination: I had to go to a place which is not accessible using any public transportation means, and there aren’t too many hotel options to choose from. With the help of our client, the hotel part was very quickly solved and I was also permitted to rent a car in the Netherlands in order to get to the remote location. Things were looking good 🙂 .
Eindhoven Airport
After some searching, it also became obvious that the flight options from Cluj to the Netherlands are numerous and I chose the good old Wizzair flight from Cluj to Eindhoven. The flight itself was easy, because I left on Sunday evening (leaving most of my weekend untouched) and I was able to stay until Wednesday evening (leaving a lot of time to work with the customer). The only drawback was that it was scheduled to arrive a little late, which meant there were only limited car-rental companies to choose from (well, only one to be honest). I did not reserve a car ahead, because I wanted economy, but I had some problems reserving it online.

And now, the fun part (round 1): winter chose to switch up a few gears exactly on the weekend of my flight. This meant, that there were quite considerable flight delays to deal with. The one car rental company I based my trust upon, however, was open until 10 PM, so theoretically I had a 2 hour buffer for delays. In the end I had a 1 and a half hour delay in the flight (counting the quite slow response time at the airport baggage-belt), so I was well within the time limits.

The really funny part came next (round 2), as I rushed over to the car-rental company to get myself a car, and drive to the hotel (1 hour and 20 min drive) before 11PM (at the limit). Technically everything was well: the company was open, I could find them easily (great guidance at the airport) and an agent was there smiling and ready to help me… practically, I received some very disturbing news from the agent: “We have nothing…”. “What do you mean nothing?” “Well, we have no cars at all… maybe tomorrow morning?”. “Great.. :(“. Lesson learned: book ahead, do not trust the opening hours of the car-rental companies.

So: I have to get to my destination hotel in about one and a half hours, but there are no cars anywhere… not a chance… 🙁 .

The light into this dark situation actually came from the bright logo of the airport-hotel in Eindhoven: “Tulip Inn” (love them, we actually have a great one in Cluj also). I said to myself I will check them out. And so I did: I went to the reception and here I received some great news for a change: “We have room!” (and at a great price). I must say I was VERY pleased with the hotel services. The receptionist was very friendly, there was free WiFi (so I could reserve a car for the next day 😛 ) and a late-night lunch was possible at the hotel bar near the reception (I was served by the same friendly receptionist) at very reasonable price.
Tulip Inn Eindhoven

As bad as things have started out, I was able to sleep well that night, so no harm was made 🙂 . I was actually very delighted for the possibilities/services I received 😉 .

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Prague

September 7th, 2013

So you wake up in Prague and you know a whole day is ahead of you dedicated just for exploring this colorful city. Are you excited? Well of course 🙂 . The target for the one whole day we spent in Prague was to visit the main sights in the old city center (this time during the day) and to visit the castle of Prague.
Prague
As I have stated in my previous post, we were just a few metro stations away from the city center, so after having a delicious breakfast at the hotel, we headed off to the city center. Again, we were confronted with a lot of small, winding streets: our job to find stuff did not get much better compared to the previous evening. We were actually targeting the castle for the first half of the day, with the city center “reserved” for the second part.

Getting to the castle, however, took us through the old city center, so before we knew it, we were standing in front of the Astronomical Clock, so we had a few photos taken, but basically we were just trying not to get hit by someone and to get out of the photos of others. The crowd was a bit disturbingly dense… Anyway, the city was quickly getting alive, so we decided not to get spun off our target and looked for signs to take us to Karluv most (a.k.a. Charles Bridge) which seemed like the ideal place to cross to river to get to the side where the castle is. The bridge itself, although it is a simple arched bridge, is pretty impressive especially taking into account its age and the baroque statues it is decorated with. It also gives a pretty impressive view of the castle. But again, it was full of people, so we did not really spend too much time on it and went on instead towards the castle.

We climbed quite an impressive number of stairs to the castle, but eventually we got up before the crowd (or at least that is what we thought). We did not really know where the entrance to the castle was, so we decided to had a walk in the small park with a beautiful view of the city. We eventually got to an entrance, which to our surprise was actually the back entrance. This meant we had to go all the way back (this time within the castle walls though) to almost the spot we were at the beginning to buy tickets. We bought a Prague castle long visit ticket which entitled us to visit most of the sites without the need to additionally pay at each place. I must say the castle is pretty impressive and I think most sites are worth a visit. I especially liked St. Vitus Cathedral: I think it is one of the most impressive cathedrals in it’s class.

The tour of the castle took up quite a lot of time, and after quite a few hours of walking we were ready to go down to the city center, have lunch, then have a look around. It was a good idea to leave the city center walk to the afternoon, because at this time it was the fullest with street performers, who really animated the place. The general feeling was really good: Prague woke a lot of feelings reminding me of Amsterdam and Venice (interesting mix, right? 😛 )

We went to have dinner at a place recommended by a lot of people: U Fleku, a very rustic place where they seem to have an unlimited amount of beer and food for everyone. Do not expect to get an easy meal, when you order chicken here: here chicken means half a chicken (all inclusive). The beer itself is heavy and they simply serve you as you sit down, without a lot of questions asked. Anyway, we had an interesting dinner and I think we understood what eating out in Prague really means: beer, beer, heavy food and fun 🙂 .

Again, here’s the link with a selection of photos we took.

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