16^th Feb

After a tiring 3GSM fair, I’am on the way back to Paris/Bangalore and am currently in boarding gate to check for some unsecured networks to get latched on to ..

This was my first 3GSM and it turned out to be a very tiring affair with miles of walking down the different halls and the booths learning about the different mobile products while continuously trying to think of areas of selling.

I found the 3GSM to be very much a European affair and does not have the presence of many of the valley startups. There are different geography specific pavilions – French, Hungary, Italy, Catalona( Spain), Singapore..I’am slightly surprised why India did not have a pavilion of its own with so many application companies cropping up..The few Indian companies I saw were Wipro, Subex-Azure, Sasken, Aricent, Tata-Elxsi.

A small poem that I could pen on the 3GSM show ...

Aching Heels and Tiring Shoulders,

Busy Mind with probing thoughts,

Walking across the crazy halls,

Finding a maze of products,

Roams a person whom I know.

Selling a story, not so bad

tough to digest , hard to fathom

a popular story – “the world is flat”

the penny you spend, the penny you gain

the service you buy, the product you sell

makes it all – a fair gain and a good plan

Roams a person…

Trading cards..not the playing cards

These are the “Business” cards

Reading minds, Taking Notes – the paper notes

Selling a story not so bad.

End of the show, a crazy show

The aching heel and the tiring mind

Relief they get – for a day

Since tomorrow is a “new day”

sight seeing in Barcelona

11 Feb 2007

The objective of the day was to venture out in Barcelona …I had done the necessary study and had come to the conclusion that taking the “Barcelona turistic” would be the best thing to do since it will take me to the all the important places…

What I later liked about this decision was that one could hop in / hop off as many times into the buses..This is not the only bus one takes to tour..There are probably hundreds of buses that run everday in Barcelona and one can get a this bus in every 5-10 mins..Absolutely fantastic for the tourist ! One can get the value for the 19 Euros ....The tourist places are divided into red and blue zones and there are buses that run only in that zone..There are many points where one can transfer from blue to red and vice versa..As far as I can recollect, this was one of the best tourist tours that I have ever done.. I remember the one we had taken in San Francisco and we had missed the bus and had to take a taxi all the way to the airport….I hope the tourism facility has improved elsewhere also.

The city has a very architectural touch and I remember several times the name of “ Antonio Gaudi” was repeated. I assume that he was one of the very great architects and he has done several structures/buildings some of which are included in this blog.

Infact, San Francisco has some similarity to Barcelona with the up/down terrains inside the city and the architecture/buildings have resemblance, which ofcourse should because of the Spanish history…

Some statistics ( copied from the guide )

Founding 1 BC

Population 1.5 M

10095 sq km

Catalan and Spanish

Average temperature – 14 – 19 degree C

Welcome to Barcelona

10 feb 2007

What a way to get a welcome in a new city !

I was witness to a theft attempt at the airport where an attempt was made to check for a wallet in a laptop case, which was seen by some of us who were all waiting to catch the free 3GSM bus to the “Fira de Barcelona”, the venue of the event. This event served notice to all of us to be extra careful. Apparently, pickpocket is very common in Barcelona

We were saved of the long queues by the registration that we did on saturday itself. The queues would end up like the tail of “Hanuman” on Monday, since some 70000 visitors are expected for this event – 3GSM. I realized that the staff was just not upto the speed and were just setting up the machinery and the process.

My apartment booking was done at 46, La Vietana which is one of the Beds and Breakfast hostels and was located right in the downtown, near the Placa Catalunya, one of the center spots. It consisted of big, beautiful room with a twin bed, sofa, wardrobes but the (four toilets) and the kitchen are shared between the seven rooms in the floor. I noticed that the doors and windows are very long ( may be 19-12 feet from down )This probably is the typical definition of a hostel in this part of the world. Apparently, we can have a sumptuous breakfast and even cook food if we wish to since everything including oil, salt, vessels exist in the kitchen. What I was surely missing was the WLAN that existed in the Paris hotel L

After settling in the new place, I went out to eat something and ended up picking a vegetable Lasagne at the Pizza hut just down the corner..

austria in a train ..

This was my first trip in Train in an abroad country ! ...

Trains in this part of the world( europe) are considered to be a great experience and somewhat comparable to train fares..Apparently, there are many types of trains - TGV, ICE , EC etc some of these are ultra fast trains covering 300Kms/Hr ..However, I was booked on a train that used to chugh along and covered the distance between Paris-Linz in around 13 Hrs for a 1000 odd kms..There were some uncertain moments since I was not sure of how to identify the bogue( coach ) and unfortunately mine was at the end ..The Couchette ( Koo-Shey ) is a compartment with 6 beds like Indian trains ..Someways, Indian trains had better space in between the seats..The difference is the bedsheets, pillow and the breakfast..( the last one was not available because the water had exausted in the train apparently )


Another uncertain moment was when the attendendant/supervisor collected my passport and mentioned that he will return only in the morning before i alighted..This was because the train passes the border...finally I budged...

It was also unfortunate that I would be travelling both times at night and unlikely to see the beautiful countryside along the train lines ..

Linz, where I'am currently in is the third largest city in Austria and Vienna is the biggest here, which is further 3 Hrs in train ..My feelins is Salzbury is the most beautiful city that I have heard so far..


This probably was one of the most unlikely events of having to go and attend a business meeting right from the train station at 6:30 in the morning and the the customer/prospect coming to pick me up from the station..( I should be very glad to Simon ). Without him at the station, I'am sure that the taxi would not have been able to take me to where we wanted to go ...It was almost 35 Kms away from the station in the countryside ..like one of the Indian villages..with small hills lining the road..

saw some houses with brick and mud which was very similar to the ones in India. Apparently, it snows during this time and while I was here the whole day, the Sun was shining bright and sunny ..Just to say that we missed each other for the last few days when I was in Paris ..anyway, it was good to be feel the sunny weather at 10 degrees ...

What WoWed me also was the Wifi availability at the train station that made it easier to spend time from 4 till 10:30 at night ..and also probably why am writing this Blogpost ...

Probably, one of the only posts that I might end up writing from a train station !..

9:30 PM Austria time.

Another thing I just learnt is how to locate the coach number at the platform. The platform, I was able to figure from the information desk but the coach location was important since the train would just wait for 3 mins and I need to quickly hop in with the luggage..One of the ladies explained me on the 'art' of deciphering the chart that exists in the platform...Well, I hope it works ...

Paris

I had seen lot of US but only realized what I had missed when I saw Paris ..



This is my first trip to Europe and am covering Paris ( France), Linz( Austria ) and Barcelona(Spain)..The trip itself was not finalized till the last couple of days. Infact, some places in Scandinivia got cancelled at the last minute and then I also had a struggle with our traveldesk to get the iterinary/tickets confirmed. The biggest trouble was the trip from Paris to Linz and back, which eventually was booked in Train, which is an overnight train...I will cover the Austria part of the trip in my next post ..

Air France journey was fine, but somehow felt Lufthansa was better based on my previous experience. I landed at Paris at around 8:30 in the morning to get a first experience of the cold weather in Paris..Also had a bad experience of getting duped of 20 Euros by the taxi driver..I was informed before I started that the journey to the hotel is free and the surprisingly the same was confirmed by an airport official..When, I landed at the hotel, the driver demanded money..Apparently, the most of the hotels in the Roissy region have free shuttles from mCharles De Galle airport, which ferry people to/from the hotel/airport..One needs to watch for the proper shuttle which will have the names of the various hotels ..

The day in Paris was a meeting at the southern tip of Paris, to which we went in train. I had not realized that most of the travel in the next few days will be in this mode..Its so contrarian to the life in US where I had not even once hopped into a train/bus for transport..and here the trains are the lifeline ..Just reminds me of mumbai..Infact when one travels in train, you can almost feel the mumbai effect ..the houses around the railway track, people hopping in/out, frequent trains etc..Infact, you can see some "ghopadphattis" also near the suburbs of france..






Weather would have been around 3-4 degrees C for most of the day; Most of the people wear 2-3 layers of clothes and a longer jacket and a scarf is very common..I heard this is one of the coldest months of the year..

Language in France is an issue and most of the people would talk only in French....However, people in the information desks speak English and are quite helpful...










After the meeting we got down in Saint Michelle and saw the Eiffel tower from far and spent some time doing small shopping and then finally came back by train to CDG and then the shuttle..