I have spent a good chunk of my adult life in airports.

I adore travel for business and leisure.  My beloved husband agreed to attend an EV and technology tradeshow in Berlin for my birthday this year.

Rather unfortunately, beloved husband had to stay back in New Zealand this week as he’s speaking at a conference and attending a very important meeting thing that I am not allowed to talk about.  (Eye roll)

ANYWAY!

I am footloose and fancy free for a couple of weeks in Europe.

I attended the IDTechEx show and met some wonderful people, and got to know three Kiwi colleagues a lot better over the days that we were hanging out together.  Very fond of all of them, and we all got a lot out of attending the conference.  Admittedly, one of the things I got was a massive hangover as I stayed out till 4:00am drinking on the eve of my Birthday. A couple of days later and I am feeling quite human again.

I am here at the Berlin Tegel airport, hours ahead of catching my flight to Amsertdam because I mistakenly thought I was booked on a star alliance flight and would therefore have lounge access.  WRONG.  I am flying with KLM and they are sky scanner not star alliance, so I am sitting here at a table in a crowded terminal catching up on Blog posts.  I’ll also be writing to the potentially soon to be ex-travel agent to inquire as to why I am not booked on star alliance.  I could have done all of this myself with less hassle.  Grrr.

The trip to the airport was fraught.  I don’t fully grasp the german rail ticket thing so the four single trip passes I bought when I landed (enough to get me to and from the airport I thought as I had to take one bus and one train each way) were not validated and no good.  I managed to score a nice shiny $60Euro ticket for fucking up something as simple as buying a train ticket.  Admittedly, it was all quite comical, as the German ticket collector fella was SO GERMAN and there was no way he was going to let me get away with this, even though it was obvious that I had made an earnest attempt to do the right thing and purchase the correct ticket.  He did, however, assure me that the German government probably won’t care enough to send me a ticket to New Zealand.  I guess we will see.

Shortly after receiving my nice big infringement notice, the train I was on stopped and we all had to get off and wait for a new train.  The new train was VASTLY overcrowded and I was squeezed into the carriage like a sardine.  There was a couple of other women, one who looked Chinese, and one who was Italian, trying to get to the airport.  They asked me for help.  I explained that I am probably not the right person to be asking, but I did know that we had to get the TXT bus from the station to get to the airport.

It was nice to make a short but real connection with some strangers, as I’ve become very acutely aware that I am very reliant on human interaction and connectedness.  I’m missing my husband and children, and I am missing my friends and workmates as well.

I won’t let this put a damper on the amazing opportunity to explore Europe and connect with some of our EV and green tech colleagues.  I am feeling pretty blessed and pretty deflated all at the same time.

So I’ll wrap this little whinge session up now I guess.  I’ll be boarding the plane in a little more than an hour, and until then I will try and catch up on some actual work.

Once I arrive in Amsterdam (my next stop) I think I will venture into the city and walk along the canals and maybe stop at a hash bar and read a book for a couple of hours.  Whether I can be bothered venturing out at all…

Better go and catch up on some other stuff.

Hope you are well, whatever you’re up to over the weekend ahead.