It’s time for a business trip. The last one, already 3 years ago (to China). And then came Covid. And working from home. And lockdown. And closed borders. And canceled flights. You know it…
I’m loving it. The planning. The (positive) stress. The packing. The shopping (chocolate & Christmas cookies for the colleagues). The long travel days. The even longer work days. The dinners. The culture. The people. Meeting new colleagues. Meeting old colleagues. And last but not least, I was really excited about traveling to a country I haven’t been to: Romania. Ready to go.
Wearing a business style winter coat first time after purchasing it before the pandemic started.
Monday morning. All packed up. Hubby offering a shuttle service to the airport. A quick kiss & fly. So far, so good.
2 hours later, all checked in and ready to go… and then… first flight (out of 2) canceled. Yeah! Great start and a lot of work: go & pick up your checked in baggage. Go back to entry hall where the journey started 3 hours ago. Wait for new information on flight. Receiving a meal voucher in between. Go and check in your baggage again. You purchased a water? Bad luck. Drink it or leave it and get ready for a 2nd security check in. Find your new gate and wait. And this is how you get back in a routine. Lol.
The good news: meeting people from all over the world and chatting along to kill time.
New flight to Munich (instead of Frankfurt) and from there to Rumania. New arrival time: 1am next day. Yeah! That’s only a 8 hour delay or to kill 8 hours in Munich airport. That almost spoke for a dinner at the Hofbräuhaus, but no interest in check in a 3rd time. What a day. A lot of coffee and working from Munich airport later…. Ready for our red eye flight.
Travel bug instead of software bug – definitely something new.
First impression: Cluj is a bit like Shanghai. A young & wonderful team. All day rush hour. Taxi fast lane (we’ll, it’s actually the bus lane…). Crazy drivers (Oh, I miss our driver Mr Xu). First impression chaotic and not organized but surprisingly it all does work out. Of course! I’m loving it.
I like that it’s me who brings German Christmas cookies abroad rather than receiving it. The smiles on the (German) faces – priceless.
I learnt the the German word for cheers – Prost! – means stupid in Romanian. Oh, well. Cheers then!
It was fun. It was exhausting. It was wonderful. Our return travel went surprisingly well. Next challenge: reimbursement of costs with the new tool. Never a dull moment.
I have a feeling I’ll be back in January. Looking forward.
Stuttgart547 