Europe Trip: Sept 2011

My next trip to Europe brings me back to Amsterdam. Flew by Delta and the experience was OK. Still no personal entertainment. If I had not known better I would have some what start believing that flight from/to India was being discriminated.
Amsterdam in summer is even better than in winter. The place is alive. People of bicycle are moving everywhere. In a city with hardly population of few millions, there are supposed to be 3 million bicycles. Also availed of public transport (tram and train) and they are as efficient as they can be.

My next stop was Copenhagen, capital of Denmark. This was a new city for me and let me take some time to write about it.
Denmark is at conjecture of Scandinavia and rest of Europe. Its culture it true to other European culture with close linkages to its Scandinavian history.
I actually had a meeting in a place called Malmo which is just across the border in Sweden. I was amazed by the collaboration between these 2 country. Both the country are building this city together, and making it into a commercial hub with business and entertainment avenue.
My meeting was in a multi purpose arena which was home of one of ice hockey team. It also could be turned to concert area within 24 hours. I was in of the corporate room which opened into the stadium. I got some taste of those rich and famous although I could see any hockey or concert. I also liked the business model of these arena. The arena sold off boxes to sponsor or rent it out during non-hockey/concert time.

The next day was off day for me and I took a foot trip through the Copenhagen city center. The place is not as clean as Amsterdam but as the day progressed it became very lively. There were street shows of all kind - Jazz, Violin, Western guitar, Mountain gypsy music, street comedy performance and others. There were different kinds of shops - all global branded ones, ethnic market, lot of eateries. There were 'Ricksaw', slightly different than India in built and also that drivers had iPad to entertain the guests.

I took a canal drive through the city and saw a lot of tourist destination including the little mermaid. There was one building where the top had 3 serpentine like body intertwining each other. This was a symbolic of the 3 Scandinavian country - Norway, Sweden and Denmark working together. Also the famous shipping industry was visible during these rides.

The weather was great during the day and I lead a nomadic life for one full day. Beautiful.

 

US Trip: June 2011

My second trip to US was an complete business trip. I was there for a week and every day in a new city.
International flight this time was through Star alliance members - Lufthansa and Continental. And both of them was a bad experience. The service for these mammoth organizations are average. I guess they are surviving because of sheer size and network muscle. Flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt did not have a personal entertainment and even onward to US had limited options. I was excited for return from Continental because of direct flight from Newark to Mumbai, but I missed the flight due to delay in connecting. The service again post delay was poor.

In internal US flight, I had the opportunity to travel in Southwest. As I had read many case study during my MBA days, the experience proved amazing. Their operations process, informal and friendly service was like  a wave of fresh air.

Could not see much of US this time except the famous arc in St Loius.

Auckland, New Zealand

My next official visit took me to Auckland in April 2011. This time I flew Malaysian Airline. The airline is OK
The city is a excellent. Its very well maintained and very lively.
This year Rugby world cup would happen in New Zealand and so the place was buzzing with rugby. Lots of souvenir, airport shops, clothes were selling related to this.
One of the afternoon took a cruise ride over the harbor. I was amazed by the richness and grandeur of the place. Weather was good and I had just hoped that the business meeting would have been successful :(.

Norway Trip

During my next business travel in January 2011, I had been to Oslo, capital of Norway. This time I flew Turkish Airways (via Istanbul). Its a good airline, especially the entertainment systems and food. I had some time to see around its hub,Istanbul airport while going. But while coming back since my flight from Oslo was delayed I run across two terminals which were far across and just boarded the flight on time.

Weather. Norway in winter is cold. When I came to know that I had to visit Oslo, I checked the weather to find that temperature was -25 degree C. And when I visited, people were happy that winter was almost over, but temperature was still -11 degree C. I remembered my school geography where we read about places up north where sun never rises during winter. In Oslo, there was sunshine for few hours. There was snow all over. This was my first city where I saw people well use to living in cold. But for me, I had a tough time walking in the snow filled streets.

Food. I had couple of business meals in the nearby restaurants. One was a Spanish which served buffet and where exotic food of different kind kept coming in, one after the other. The other was Japanese Sushi (its a big hit there). This on the other hand was not my favorite meal. First of all I could not use chop stick and secondly I did not fancy the taste. In other places, I normally ordered fish preferably salmon which was pretty good.
One afternoon while having lunch, we heard siren sound. I was a bit alarmed, but other kept on having their food. I then learnt that this was a routine test of installed sirens. These sirens have been in place from world war days, and had been used to alarm the citizens about attack from enemies. Somebody joked that this may be the best time to attack,as people may not know if this is a real attack or simply a routine test.

City. I was in Oslo for couple of days only and was mostly in meetings, so could not see the city. But while traveling to & fro airport, saw some of it. Norway is supposed to be one of the most prosperous country and the abundance shows. There were lots of boats and I remembered one of Scandinavian ex-colleague from Sweden who told me about his boating experience. Pakistanis form the largest expatriate population  living in Oslo and I had my first hand experience as my cab driver was one of them. We had a very interesting talk in Hindi.
The airport gift shop reminded me of vikings as described in Asterix /Obelix comic books. Norway along with Denmark & Sweden have a rich history interwoven in war and collaboration. Again it reminds of Indian Continent present. Hope we would be able to live in peace and collectively prosper in near future.

America - visit

I want to highlight my impressions about US through various sub-topics.

Infrastructure. I knew about the advance infrastructure the country has but to see it for real is a good experience. Indians living in US have always mentioned about the high standard of living and now I could understand why. The road & transport, shopping areas and mostly airports are very systematic. In Cleveland, while on road the cab driver told me about the walls being built across the length of the road (free way). I saw continuous iron pillars and then saw wall being constructed. The completed wall structure was being mounted on these pillars. The purpose of these walls was to provide for noise insulation for residents living on either side of the road. The material used for these walls was specially made to serve this purpose after a lot of research. The price - 1 million US$ for 1 mile (one side) of road. The project was also hauled to provide major boost to the economy during recession along with providing employment. Thanks to my erudite cab driver for the above knowledge. He also joked that he hoped the construction of those wall material and iron rod was happening in US and not outsourced to China.
As part of infrastructure, airports were very good. Mostly big and very well organized.

Television. I could see most of comedy serials I see at Home and saw few early episodes which would be viewable back home a month later. There is a lot of local city content in the TV programs, especially news channel and within this weather. Back in India, I have never given much thought to weather related news. It could be either because of wrong forecast or may be because of the fact that it has little impact on lifestyle. But I understood its relevance in western country when life is impacted because of it. It makes a difference if it is windy, snowing or sunny. I was tested with a different unit for temperature measurement, i.e. Fahrenheit. I had to recall my school days to remember that 0 Celsius is 32 Fahrenheit. For locals, use of Fahrenheit is so obvious that they seldom use it. Although I do not remember the inception of different measurement for temperature, I could make some sense of use of Fahrenheit in US- since temperature is mostly below freezing in winter, if we use Celsius then people have to preclude temperature with the word 'minus', whereas in Fahrenheit it would normally be straight away degree (it would be seldom be minus in Fahrenheit). This would save that extra millisecond in speaking. And psychologically you are still positive. Another big use of watching the weather channel is that it's very good topic for conversation. Everybody right from cab driver to professional would be able to tell you the measure of snow fall in inches expected this year.
I have never understood why people across globe cannot use a common unit of measurement. Why is it still mile and gallons and not KM and litres?
Another thing I want to highlight is the quality of advertisement on television. It is not good. Now I understand why many Indian ads are getting critically acclaimed international awards.

Culture. My earlier notion of US was through many movies (both Hollywood and Bollywood) which I had seen. Most of the setting would be in New York (Like most Hindi movie earlier were Mumbai based), where Statue of Liberty would be shown as sign of coming to US, swearing cab driver were mostly Asians and city would be buzzling with people. But my arrival in US was in Atlanta, none of the cab drivers were swearing or Asians and I did not see a lot of people on streets. On the other hand couple of cab drivers were very learned and provided me a lot of information to write this blog and also knew about India (IT, Mukesh Ambani Antilla, Goa, etc).

Brand Division: It seems that big brands in US have divided their geography. We have heard of Mafia gangs dividing their area of operation. Similarly cola major seem to have divided their areas. In Atlanta it was all Coke, which is understood as Coca Cola is headquartered here. But it was surprising to not find any Pepsi available anywhere, be it in shops, restaurants or airport. Cleveland was all about Pepsi and no Coke. Same way in news channel, it was all CNN in Atlanta (again headquartered here) and no Fox. Also CNN people were highlighting quite openly that Fox is favoring the Republican party and are not impartial as news channel should be. i guess the war is in the open.

Currency: For a long time recent times, Dollar has been the most powerful currency in the world. In the last decade Euro had strengthened as an alternate global currency while Dollar had a tough time due to the financial crisis. But recently with few Euro economy facing a very hard economic times, dollar once again is looking as favorite. My experience handing dollar has not been that good. And the reason for this is that all denominations look same in both color and size. If you look at Indian Rupee higher the denomination (moving up from Rs 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, 1000) size of the note increases. Color is also different. The same is true with Euro. Or may be it is simply familiarity. Here even if I do not have a look at the numbers on the currency note, I know what value it is. I remember when the new Rs 500 note was introduced, one common advice from others was to be look carefully while giving someone Rs 100 note as the new Rs 500 note appeared similar. During this time Rs 500 mattered a lot and not many of us were used to carry it in our wallet as daily expense.
Imagine the same situation (at least for me) while handling Dollars. Their size and overall color is same whether it is $1, 5, 20 or 100. The only way to differentiate them is look at the actual digits or to remember past US Presidents in order of currency denomination, i.e. Washington, Lincoln, Jackson or Franklin. In the Oscar winning movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' there was a questions in the movie plot where Anil Kapoor asks the question - Which US President face appears on a specific US dollar denomination? Luckily the hero had seen and remembered that currency. But for me, it would take few more visits to US to become familiar.
I had a even more difficult time understanding the coins. Once I was buying something and when the lady asked for money, I started counting the coins and because of the unfamiliarity, started fumbling with the coins. The lady over the counter, politely offered to help me count. She must have thought I was mentally slow. The engineer and MBA in me felt so ashamed :(

America - Arriving

My first trip to US. I had heard a lots of story about arriving in US. I was told that since I would be entering US for the 1st time, it was most certain that I would be stopped by the officials and interrogated. Apart from other things, it was told that I should know the exact count of all things packed in my bags. For this my wife had helped my prepare a 'chutka' (similar to the one which one uses in exam cheating). I had religiously kept this in my cabin baggage and actually revised it constantly, so that my answers during the imminent interrogation seems natural. Also I was arriving during the busiest travel season which was the week of thanksgiving. During my stay in hotel in Europe, reports in TV news channels (only TV channels I could understand were English news) were showing the new security checking at US airports which included some sophisticated x-ray and not so sophisticated manual body frisking. (Incidentally the week I was back home, Indian ambassador to US had to undergo similar scrutiny mostly because she was wearing a sari. This became a major diplomatic news issue). 

As you can understand, I was apprehensive arriving in US. But my experience couldn't have been more contrasting. Not only while arriving but during my other trips inside the country and return, I never had to undergo the body frisking. I had to open my shoes for security check, but I guess this is becoming more of a practice across all airports. And my preparation with my 'chutka' did not come to use. Actually I was disappointed. This was a similar feeling when you would have prepared extensively for a guaranteed questions  and then it does not come in the exam, even though the exam had went well!

I traveled to Atlanta, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Memphis (transit) and then back to Atlanta. I could not see much around the city, primarily because I was constantly traveling and secondly it was very cold. Except Atlanta, where I had stayed over the weekend and also since my college friend was there I could see few parts of the city. So my impressions of US is mostly based on time I had spent in the airport (which was a lot) and TV viewing in hotels. 

More about it in my next post.

Brussels

Who would have thought that I would come to Belgium one day!
I knew about Belgium through the comic books which I had read when young including Tintin & Astrix. But that was about it. Recently I knew about it as this is the capital of European Union.
The city appears to be a mixture of different things. It has older looking building along with new skyscrapers. Upon talking to few people from this place I found out that it has a mixture of population comprising of those speaking French and those speaking Dutch.
If you are ever in this part of the world, do try to eat fish. I had salmon and shrimps which were fabulous. Belgium is also famous for its chocolates. We went to a very expensive store and tried one dark chocolate. It was the best one I have ever had. There were a lot of variety and especially because of holiday season lot of gift packs were available. There were chocolate with alcohol !
Traffic seems more Indian with people changing lanes with ease and also people to blow horn.
The appearance of people of Belgium is different. To be politically correct, most of them look like characters from the comic books.
Brussels was the last stop of my European trip from here I went to US. This wold be my first time in America. More in my next post.