Heathrow Airport

In late May I made my first trip through London's Heathrow airport. Heathrow is a world famous airport and I expected to see a first class airport. Shocked would best describe what I thought when I arrived at terminal 3. If I didn't know I was at Heathrow I would have guessed I was in a third world country. When I went to work the next day, I was talking to my colleagues about my first impression of Heathrow was shocking to say the least. We discussed how it should be torn down - basically it was a dump. A couple of days later my colleague handed me a newspaper in which a government official was quoted as saying "Heathrow is a national embarrassment".

I didn't get to see terminal 5, but was told that it was modern and state-of-the-art. There is another terminal under renovation, but it won't be completed until 2012.

Good and Bad Service in London

When you travel a significant amount of time you quickly notice good service and more importantly come to really appreciate it. I had never been to London so didn't know what to expect in terms of taxi, restaurant, or hotel service.

My first impression was not good. I arrived at Heathrow around 11 pm on a Tuesday night - there were very few people at the airport. After quickly clearing customs and immigration, I made my way to the taxi line to head to my hotel. I was surprised to see the taxi starter ASK the next driver in line if he'd take me to my destination. After agreeing, the driver did not get out the taxi and load my bag - no big deal I'm more than capable of doing it. It was a short drive to the hotel and to my surprise when we arrived he sat in the car and waited for me to exit and unload my bags. The whole time acting agitated that I was taking to long to get out of the car. Needless to say I did not feel real welcome in London. Later in the week I needed another ride from Heathrow to my hotel - this time it was late afternoon. I was dumbfounded when the taxi driver refused to drive me to the hotel and emphatically told me to take the bus. In all my travels I've never seen anything like this.

Luckily my experience at the Heathrow Raddison Edwardian hotel was exactly the opposite of the taxi experience. The staff there was fantastic. After getting to my room I received a phone call to see if the room was ok. Whenever I needed transportation or directions to restaurants, the bellmen were incredible. One bellman, John, provided some of the best service I've ever received at a hotel. On Friday night he spent 20-25 minutes mapping out a day trip for me to London. He also provided excellent restaurant recommendations in the area.

One of the restaurant recommendations was the Pheasant Restaurant and Lounge. The menu offered a wide variety of food. I ended up eating there 3 times over the week. The fish and chips were great and the fillet mignon was some of the best I've ever eaten. Best of all the service was excellent and the staff was very friendly.

My experience with the Raddison and the Pheasant made up for the less than stellar service received in other parts of London. If you are traveling to London be prepared for service an all parts of the spectrum.

NBA Games Fixed?

I read Marc Stein's article "NBA has no quick fix for Donaghy's fixing charges" today. While I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I must say the NBA has a real image problem. I lost a lot of interest in the NBA after Magic and Bird retired and now found myself only occasionally watching the playoffs. I have seen many questionable calls - that get made and that don't get made - that really raise questions about the fairness of the game. After reading about the Donaghy scandal, I thought I remembered that NBA referees had a scandal about 10 years ago involving false tax claims involving airline tickets. After doing some Googling, indeed that was the case. David Stern has to put on the best face for his league, however when the referees keep making the news it's easy to question how legitimate the games really are. If I watch any of the remaining games, I know I will be looking at each call made much more closely than in the past.

Great Airline Service

Yes, I'm sure you reread the title of this post at least twice. My customer meeting for today got canceled so I decided to fly standby and get home this morning instead of late tonight. I got up at 4 am EDT and made my way to Logan airport to catch an earlier Northwest flight back to Minneapolis. I was able to get on the 6 am EDT flight. Northwest offered me a complimentary upgrade to first class which of course I accepted. On the flight back it became obvious that our flight attendant, Carmen, was no ordinary flight attendant. She provided our cabin the best service I've ever received on an airplane! She called everyone of us by name when she asked if we wanted anything. My coffee cup was never empty and after the first cup she never asked how I wanted my coffee. Others sitting near me also noticed this incredible personalized service. In the days of airlines cutting back on just about everything and charging for what they haven't discontinued, this was greatly appreciated and did not go unnoticed. I hope to be on another flight where Carmen is the flight attendant - this really made my day.

My Day in London

On my recent trip to London, I had an off day and spent last Saturday in London. All I can say is one day is not enough to see all of London. I took the Heathrow Express into Paddington station and from there jumped onto the Big Bus Company tour. This open top bus tour takes you around all the major attractions in London. I'd recommend this for those that want to get a lay of the land and then pick things to go see. This was a hop-off and hop-on tour so if you did see anything you liked it was very easy to do that and then catch a later bus. I discovered that some tours offered a recorded message and others offered a live tour guide - I'd recommend the live guide. My tour lasted nearly 3 hours has the traffic became very heavy about half way through the tour. If traffic is light the tour takes a little over 2 hours. I chose to do the complete loop so I wouldn't run out of time. At the end of the tour I spent an hour or so walking through Hyde Park. Hyde Park is very large and many activities going on simultaneously. Here is the link to my pictures from my day in London.

Democratic Presidential Race

I have been in London and Madrid this past week. When I left the US I thought I'd be able to escape the 24x7 coverage of the Democratic primary race. In London there was no escape from this hotly contested race. The newspapers and the British news carry coverage of this race as if it was their own. It doesn't even end with coverage of Hillary and Barack. At dinner tonight there was multi-page (that's right not multi-column) story of how Bill Clinton has fallen out of the graces of the American people. It was harder for me to gauge the coverage in Madrid as everything was in Spanish. However several of my Spanish IBM colleagues were very aware of the race for the White House.

I happened to be in Europe at the same time the primaries are wrapping up. My home state of South Dakota is receiving a lot of press on this side of the pond. I enjoyed reading stories written in Yankton, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, and Mt. Rushmore. It's not everyday South Dakota gets international coverage.

To Blog or Not to Blog

I started a blog in late 2005 - didn't really stick with it and it was somewhat of a new technology at the time. After Brian Reese graduated from the Air Force Academy last year, I noticed that he was very diligent about blogging - the link to his blog is on the left. To make a long story short, I hosted Brian when he played Junior Hockey in Rochester, MN. We stayed friends over the years and I enjoy reading his blog - in fact I get it delivered to my email so I don't have to go to the web everyday. So now several months later I decided to throw out my observations.

About 3 years ago I accepted a new position at IBM that required me to do extensive travel. I meet with customers that my team supports from many different cities and countries. After spending many hours on planes, in airports, in hotels, and in restaurants one gets the chance to observe many "unique" things. Now that my mental list is exceeding my memory capacity, it's time to document them for all the world.

Those that know me won't be surprised to see some post thoughts on politics. While I have zero desire to run for public office, I've followed politics since I was in grade school. On that note I am an avid ice hockey fan, but I've never played the game - I'm starting to see a pattern here.