Still back to today. A sad day as it saw my departure from Tromso and my separation from the Baltic Rim Expedition. Both Tim and Wendy bravely came out at 0530 on a bright but fresh morning to wave me good bye
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| Tim and Wendy at 0530 - to make sure I was leaving! |
as the airport bus headed out of town - another journey through those tunnels with roundabouts!
The expedition has been a wonderful time and we had driven about (well Tim did) 3000 km since I joined up in Helsinki. We have had some great meals, and some very expensive ones, also seen some fantastic scenery and wild life as well as interesting sites and sights. We could see some of the other cars in the local car park so it seems everyone made it back from the North cape to Tromso OK either by ferry or by road as we did.
The airport was moderately busy but it all went well and I was soon the B373-600 of SAS to Oslo. My first trip on SAS I believe and it was OK. The flight was over snow covered hills and mountains until quite close to Oslo. Then a quick change at Oslo airport with barely enough time to go to the loo and check email in the lounge before the short trip to Copenhagen. Another B737 a 700 model this time and we were all too soon in the airport.Again a short transit time - most of which was taken up with the long walk from one terminal to the other. Also time for a quick chat on the telephone with an old friend Grethe a local doctor. Those who read the blog (if there are any) may recall that I used to work in Swaziland with Grethe's husband Jes many years ago and they came to Vienna last year and we all went to see Carmen at the Opera. Jes was away in Sweden on business but it turns out he too is about to change jobs.
Then the last lap was an MD 82 to Berlin - a short flight with no problems and the weather getting brighter all the time.
The big relief in Berlin was seeing my bag had arrived in one piece. Then I took the local bus from outside the terminal to the main station.
It was quick and easy to buy a train ticket for the 2.5 hours journey to Gera and the next train left within 30 minutes so it all worked very well.
Soon I was looking out at the flat north German plain...........
as we sped to Leipzig where the train terminated. It seemed odd to see silver birch trees covered in leave s after the trees in Northern Norway for the preceding few days. In Leipzig I connected to a local express on the adjacent platform for the 65 minutes ride to Gera. After Leipzig I could see the rolling hills of Saxony and Thuringia
and even recognised a few of the place names as former uranium production sites from previous visits.
At Gera it was the same old taxi ride around the one way system to get to the Novatel Hotel , my base until Saturday morning. Once checked in for the hotel I checked in for the conference and we were issued fancy name tags that clip to your coat with a magnet system. Sadly the hotel has card keys (using magnetic stripes) and so soon we were all queuing up at the desk to get the cards reprogrammed and promising to keep them the keys and badges apart and away from credit cards too!
Many old friends and colleagues are here and it was like old pals week as we all drifted around the opening reception. Seems everyone knows I am off to a new job next week and wanted to wish me good luck, which was very nice.
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