I am on my third week of business travel. This week I am in Madrid. For the previous two weeks I was in the San Francisco Bay area. I have previously blogged about the concept of Travelympics, which is the competitive process of travelling in style and without interruption or problem.
My trip to San Francisco started good when I was assigned an emergency exit seat on the flight giving me unlimited legroom. When I sat down I was pleased to discover that I was sat next to a Sun Microsystems colleague, Mark Hayden. After peaceful, uneventful flight with a couple of good movies I passed through passport control with no queue - having got off the plane first by merit of being right by the exit. My Travelympics score was severely dented though when my bag, which took ages to arrive, was badly damaged. Through negotiation over the next two weeks Virgin Atlantic baggage services representative at San Francisco Airport, Chris, agreed to refund up to $200 towards the cost of new cases. Prior to the flight home I managed to book a miles-upgrade to Virgin Upper Class so I arrived at the airport in good spirits. A nice meal in the Upper Class lounge and a few drinks with some Sun colleagues lifted my spirits higher, so Chris visiting the lounge with an envelope containing $180 for my bags was the icing on the cake. I slept for a full 7 hours on the shorter than usual flight after I had my massage. Arriving in London the only thing that dented my spirits and Travelympics score was the realisation that I had left Chris' envelope on the bar counter in the lounge in San Francisco. Luckily a colleague had picked it up and is arranging to reunite me with the money. In all a high scoring Travelympics trip.
After just 40 hours at home it was time to depart for Madrid. Luckily my flight was from Bristol which is just 10 miles from home. Heathrow is 135 miles and the drive can take up to 3 hours. I was apprehensive as I was flying EasyJet, a low cost UK airline, which is not known for its high standards of customer service. However, a short check in queue and pleasant helpful staff changed my mind. EasyJet don't have assigned seating so you sit wherever you want to on the aircraft. Consequently boarding can sometimes be a free-for-all. I had the foresight to pay $5 for priority boarding and got a high Travelympics score by being the first person to board the aircraft meaning I got another emergency exit seat. Strong tailwinds got us into Madrid early - another Travelympics positive - but then I lost out when I couldn't find a working ATM at the airport to get my Euros. Points were again lost when the taxi driver had problems finding my hotel, and again when the hotel told me that they didn't have irons and ironing boards meaning I had to pay to get my shirts pressed. So I'm in Madrid for the next week looking forward to some good meetings and, like any other business trip, I suspect the real business will take place during our evening trips to local restaurants and hostelries.
