As for the last 3 years, I’m again be working at the check-in for artists, press, and volunteers at the yearly SPOT festival. As always, hard but satisfying work, and hopefully I won’t be too busted tonight and see some music as well.

Yesterday, I had a nice walk up Mont Royal, which mostly is a park and not as high as the name might suggest. It was nice to stretch my legs a bit although the park wasn’t that impressive, but the best parts must have been leaving behind the city noise, local wildlife and the views, especially of the area I walked the day before (although you can’t really see much in the picture, one has to be there).

Today, I checkout at 11am and settled in the lobby to wait for Mark Linimon to cross the border and call, so we could meet at a metro station close to the highway. I had not turned on my laptop for more than 10 minutes when I got an email from him that he couldn’t call me from his phone and would be there in 30 minutes. Off to the metro, and after some initial trouble of figuring out how to buy a ticket (no machines, you have to interact with a human being) and use it (just drop it in the hole while you walk through, it’s not read and no reciept so you wonder why you need that piece of paper for), the metro took me to Lasalle and Mark arrived a couple of minutes after me. Getting back onto the highway was a very inventive U-turn like way, but we managed that without major problems. Of course, the computer printout told us to take the 40 to Ottawa, but there were no signs with either, and yes, we took the wrong turn. Getting of the highway immediately and driving through a residential area assuming “just follow east”, we mysteriously ended up on the right road, despite ourselves and outside of Montréal made good time to reach Ottawa.

Everybody else is starting to arrive as well, so let’s see what the turnout will be tomorrow at the DevSummit.

First off, always remember to turn off your phone when going to bed in a different timezone. If you don’t this might happen.

Arriving at Montréal Airport without any canadian dollars, the first thing I did was try to find a cash machine. No problem, there was one just besides the exit. Now, with the sky high per transaction rates of withdrawing cash at a foreign bank, one tries to get as much money out of it as possible, and PBS (the danish inter-bank clearinghouse and debit card monopoly) should be well aware of this practice. So when trying to get CAN500 was refused, I tried again with CAN200 and lo and behold, it spit out my money. And PBS duefully blocked my card as this clearly were suspicious transactions, and send a message to my bank.

As this was a Saturday afternoon, nothing happened. I got my money and was happy. PBS had blocked my card and was also happy. Until Monday morning. Danish time. After two days of walking around with a blocked card, they were happy to inform me that some suspicious behaviour was noticed and they’d blocked my card. At 5:30am, local time. They only wanted to check if those transactions might be me afterall. Being in canadian dollars at a canadian bank in Canada, could it be I might be in Canada? In a different timezone?

Thank you PBS. Because the bank will have to pay for wrongfull transactions, I guess false positives are cheaper than false negatives, don’t worry about letting people walk around with blocked cards for several days. They’re probably not in a hurry to pay the hotel and get to the airport and catch a plane home. Or embarrassed when the waiter returns with a cut card.

In short, always bring two cards, even better if they’re from different clearing houses.

I’ve been even more lucky with the choice of hotel than expected. I chose it as it looked quite close to some of the interesting areas of the city and had a metro station nearby, but it turned out that just about everything interesting to see if you only have two days, is within walking distance. With a temperature of 16-18°C (low 60s F), walking definately is the best way to get around.

Todays walk through the old town, Vieux-Montréal, shows a clear multi-ethnic society. Everywhere you look, you see influence from the english, scottish, irish, french, chinese, all while walking around a town that seems very american to ye european visitor.

Although I haven’t tried any mega-swill from the local major brewery Molson, part of the Coors empire, people seem to enjoy a good beer here. There are several brewpubs near the hotel, one of them a chain which also had a branch at the Vieux-Port which offered a set of samples of their four beers and another one that offered an Odense Porter, which of course I couldn’t resist to try and which chocolatty notes taste of more. Except for the french language, life doesn’t seem too bad here.

Todays pictures.

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading up Mont Royal to see the park and “mountain”.

One keeps wondering what goes on in the heads of plane designers. After the trip to Uganda on a Boeing 777 with half my (non-existent) legspace taken by a big metal box for the onboard entertainmaint system, which I must admit was pretty nifty with several hundred movies on-demand, this time I had the same box on an MD-11, but without an entertainment system. I just heard that KLM is doing a trail where you can pay extra for extra legspace even in monkey class, that is emergency exits, etc., I wonder if they are going to give rebates for taking away legspace? But now I know to as for an F seat on my way back, no matter what type of plane.

After an otherwise uneventful flight and only an extra grilling at the canadian customs as travelling alone and not on business obviously is suspect a.k.a. terrorist, I was lucky to be looking out the right window of the bus as it drove past my hotel and turned into the parking lot behind the hotel where the busstation is located. That was too easy! The price: having Greyhound busses idling outside my window at all hours of the day. But then, with the 6 hour time difference, I was so tired they probably could have detonated a nuclear bomb outside without me noticing.

Next up: finding my camera and doing some sightseeing. Oh, and finishing my slides.

One of the best things about vacation is being offline. However, after almost 3 weeks it does take some time to catch up with everything. So at last, but not the least, here’s what we did in those weeks.
After an uneventful nightflight via Amsterdam and Nairobi, Kenya, we arrived in Entebbe in the morning, where our guide Gerald already was waiting for us with a big Land Cruiser. Before setting off to the capital Kampala, Gerald took us to Entebbe Zoo and a lakeside lunch. A relaxing start of the vacation, after the rush of airports and planes.
The next day, we were scheduled for a trip to Ngamba Chimp Island, but as we were the only ones going that day, the boat would be too expensive. So, we changed this with the rafting trip scheduled lateron. I’ll leave it up to the reader to figure out what happens if you in little over a day go from snow in Denmark to a day in the sun in a rubberboat on the river Nile.
The rafting was a great experience. Some interesting rappids, of course going overboard almost every time, and some long stretches of relaxingly drifting, or swimming, down the Nile.
Early morning, we set off from Kampala to start our safari which would bring us through most of the national parks of south-west Uganda. First off, Kibale National Park. Kibale is a dense rainforest known for its primates, such as baboons, black-and-white colobus, red-tail monkey, and chimpanzees, which was the destination of a walk the next morning. The usual accomodation throughout Uganda is a banda, which can take many forms from a stone house to a tree hut. The one in Kibale was quite luxurious, even with hot water supplied by using two old oil-drums and a small fire underneat, to the right in the picture.
The next couple of days, we spent in Queen Elizabeth National Park, the largest national park of Uganda and also the most diverse, with both rainforst and savanah and everything inbetween. My camera didn’t have enough space, nor I enough time, to take pictures of all the bird species there, but the most impressive must have been the african fish eagle and the most numerous, the weaver birds, which litterally weave their nests in trees, like the black-headed weaver and the yellow-backed weaver. It is impossible to avoid the wildlife in the park. Just sitting on the porch of our banda, we had frequent visits from a family of warthog, mongoose, hippo (bad picture as it only comes out of the water at night), and even a waterbuck dropped by one day.
To see some of the other big mammals, a bit more work was required, so we went on a game drive for elephant, buffalo, a hyena chasing a kob, and even some lions put up a show for us in the rain. A boatride on the channel between Lake Albert and Lake Edward, showed even more birds, hippo, crocodile, and much, much more. Another trip brought us to Kyambura gorge, which is a big gap in the savanah in which a rainforest grows. We had a very nice walk along the river, but the chimps did not feel like meeting us this time. Last stop was the bat cave in Maramagambo forst, which of course was inhabited by bats, lots of bats.
Going further south, we stopped at Ishasha Camp, on the eastern bank of Ishasha River looking out on the D.R. Congo, to try and find tree climbing lions, but to no avail. In the evening, we arrived in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, one of the few spots in the world where wild gorilla populations remain. In the early morning, we set off on foot up the hill to find the M-group of habituated gorillas. After about 2,5 hours of walking, we did find them and spent an hour watching them. Most of the group was hidden in the bushes, only revealed by the moving branches, but we did get a good, long look at the big silverback male.
With almost all of our safari behind us, we set off north-east towards Kampala spending the night about halfway at Lake Mburo National Park. It looked like most tourists skip this park, and drive to and from Kampala and Bwindi in one day, which is a very long trip and they do miss this overlooked attraction. Arriving in the afternoon gave us plenty of time to relax at the lakeside restaurant and watch the vervet monkeys, pied kingfisher, and the ever-present warthog. Before setting off for a tour on the lake, the rangers put up a nice show to answer one of the big questions in life: How many parkrangers does it take to put a boat in the water? :-)
Now, the only thing left was driving back to Kampala, and say goodbye to all the wonderful national parks. avoiding some livestock and stopping at the equator.
After a night in Kampala, we drove back to Entebbe for a few hours on Ngamba Chimp Island. If I’d had to name one disappointment of the whole trip, this was it. Especially after seeing chimpanzees in the wild, having to endure a very uncomforable speedboat trip, twice, to view them in captivity does take away the thrill. Also, I had a hard time fighting off the irony while having to sit through a half hour sermon on conservation, while being ferried to and from the island with a poluting speedboat destroying flora and fauna in the lake. The chimps, of course, knew exactly when feeding time was, and put up a nice show.
After Gerald took us to the ferry to Kalanga on Buggala Island, one of the Ssese islands in Lake Victory, it was time to say goodbye. A very big thanks to Winnie and Jaynefer of Great Lakes Safaris for putting together such a great trip, and even more thanks to Gerald, not only for being such a great guide and driver, on the sometimes, ehm, interesting roads, and taking so good care of us, but also for his interesting coversations about life in Uganda. Thank you all!
The last three days of our vacation just flew by. Finally some time to relax and do absolutely nothing, nothing at all. OK, I admit. One day I did go for a swin in the lake. Hornbill Camp is probably also the perfect place to do nothing, as there is nothing to do, except read a book in a hammock, go for a swim, and talk about life in Uganda experienced by mzungu, offering a view behind the scenes of major relief organisations as the UN, MSF (Doctors Without Borders), etc., which is not quite the same story as the one you read in the newspapers.
All that is left, is to say goodbye to Hornbill Camp, and to an airport filled with indian UN soldiers on the way back to India after a tour in the D.R. Congo, and to Uganda. Until we meet again!

Going away for a while, especially without any internet connection (although we did pass it at 350m distance), does not mean that you have to do less things, they just wait until you get back. I finally found some time to sort the pictures from our trip to Uganda. The story to go with them has to wait for a few more days, so watch this space!

After an uneventful flight on fully booked (we were only 16 on the way down) on a Fokker 100 from Amsterdam, we arrived on schedule at Billund Airport. Even though Billund is a small airport and our small plane was the only one arriving at the time, somehow it is still possible to misplace about two carts of luggage. After looking at an empty conveyor belt for about 10 minutes, I decided to look for someone at the lost+found desk. There was a clear look of “Oh no! Not again!” on her face when she saw the line of 30-40 people still around the conveyor belt. But after a bit of radioing, it was a “Oh yes! Again!” and it was all hands on deck at lost+found.

After getting my claim form filled out, I went past an obviously suprised customs officer, who clearly did not expect anyone going through customs after hanging around bagage claim for half an hour with only a laptop and a bottle of Coal Ila (who would need more than those two, anyway? :-) ). After another 20 minutes, the bus arrived and while I was putting away my coat in the bus, my phone rang. She had found my suitcase. Somehow, the luggage handlers had overlooked a compartment in the plane or misplace a couple of carts, but the luggage was all there and not still in Amsterdam. She even came out to the bus with my suitcase. By far the best service, ever! Thank you very much! I certainly hope we can have that cake you mentioned, someday ;-)

This latest trip across Europe, has been very interesting indeed, in several ways. Even though I’ve been flying quite a lot the last few years, I still can be surprised. Both positively and negatively. It had already been an ordeal to find one-way tickets. Of course, you can buy a one-way ticket, but somehow they’ll make you pay three times as much as for a return ticket. I’m failing to see the logic here.
Scandinavian Airlines, one of the best quality european airlines only a few years ago, is showing clear signs that they’ve learned from some of the american airlines on how not to save money. Prices may have dropped slightly to attract more customers, but customer experience has went right down the drain with it. Flights are now being overbooked that passengers are requested to wait for the next flight at the gate (for a minor compensation), seats somehow could be even more cramped than RyanAir or EasyJet, and a glass of water makes you EUR 3,00 lighter, although that gives you a whole half-liter bottle. Leaving my luggage in Copenhagen while I went on to Ã…rhus, certainly did not help on my mood after that. Dear luggage, hope to see you soon.
The good thing is, that arriving home without luggage late at night, makes you find any single points of failure in your morning routine. And I found one. Although I’m positive that I should have more than one comb, I cannot find it. Shopping to do.

All of this came on top of the rather pleasant flights with Czech Airlines and Alitalia. Free food and drinks on the plane, normal sized seats and even arriving half an hour early in Milano. Well done! I thank you for letting me fly Czech Airlines and I hope you’ll see me back on board soon.

After a sucessful OpenFest, Peter Pentchev, Bobson and some other people took me to the Bar at the end of the Universe. Of course, I could not resist the temptation and am now happily enjoying the aftereffects of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. For those of you, who are not familiar with that particular drink, let me quote from the book itself:

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick”.

Cheers!