3rd EGEE User Forum

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I as in Clermont-Ferrand "Michelin Capital" (pop. 140,000 - night-life pop - 8) for the 3rd EGEE User Forum, basically when all of the people who are actually using the technology get together, explain how they are using it and outline progress and issues. There were some interesting demos there as well. I chaired the session of Finance and Multimedia on the first day and gave a summary presentation on the final day's plenary session.
The city itself was quite nice, very clean and visually beautiful, there was just no one around after 10:30pm. Coming from Italy and speaking with another Italian, it was quite a shock to not hear a car horn for a week straight, I haven't been able to hear myself think like that in a long time.

Travel woes: This seems to be a reaccuring theme, but here you go:
I tried to save the company money by paying for €300 ticket from Pisa to Paris instead of a €1200 ticket directly to Clermont and take the train from Paris to Clermont, which was just a couple hours. Arriving there was not problem though it was roughly a 12 hour traveling day, it was the return trip that I knew was going to be a little hairy. Considering that the train station is not at the CDG airport in France, one must take a shuttle train from the airport to the subway station, taking a commuter train to the main center subway station, change trains, get off at the next stop and you are at the Gare de Lyon Station (where my couple hour train was leaving from).
On the way back, I had a small window to get from the train station to check-in. And here's how it went:

Arriving at the train station at 4:52pm and have my flight at 6:25pm, I ran to the subway cutting through the wave of people hustling between point A and B of their respective destinations. I started off badly and it went downhill from there as I got down to the track to do my one stop transfer where my next point was listed on both the right and left track, asking for clarification in both english and my non-existent french i was directed towards the track on the right.
Watching carefully the subway line map, i quickly realized I was headed in the opposite direction (not being able to afford one mistake, this was the last thing i needed). I got off at the next stop, waited for the train coming back, passing the station I was just at and getting off at the next one in order to chang trains.

I got off at the next stop (main subway station in the center of Paris) I followed the signs that said CDG Airport and got on that train. Looked at the subway line map and saw that the line forks a couple stops before the airport, but thinking this is going to the Airport, I stayed on. Only to realize that it continued to take the fork on the right, and not the one headed to the airport.

So I was to get off at the fork station and change trains to go to the airport (something i didnt have to do on my way there) I then proceeded to get off at the next stop, take the train back to the station that was at the fork, get off and then wait for the next train to go to the airport. Needless to say, I got to the airport at 18:30 (the time my flight was to take off) to find that flight had been delayed, thinking I have a chance, I made it to the check-in to find that they had closed check-in and would not reopen it.

That's fine, as I was sure this was going to happen and had been preparing myself over the last hour of fumbling around Paris' public transportation system. I went over to the ticket counter to change my flight which was at 9pm to Munich, therefore missing my connection to Pisa. I arrived that the departure gate to find myself sitting next to what would have been my original flight, only to have my new flight be delayed by an hour an half and remain the last people in the Paris airport for the night. I made it to Munich, got to a hotel around midnight, slept for a couple hours just to go back to the airport the next morning for my flight to Pisa.

I finally made it to the gate, and onto the bus to take us to the plane, sat on the bus for roughly 10mins just to get back off due to technical problems with the plane, I was again delayed for 1hr 30mins, somehow after my numerous means of transportation, i made it to Pisa. Thinking I was finally there and ready to pick up my son at the kindergarten I called my wife to say I was waiting for my bags. After watching the belt go around with the London flight, i eagerly wanted to my flight's bags to start round only to be kicked in the balls as the conveyor belt broke. Taking the Pisa baggage handlers roughly 20mins to figure out the other belt (only 2 at the pisa airport) was not being utilized, to place our flight's bags there in order to keep airport passenger traffic moving. I made it out by 12:45pm.

1 taxi, 1 15min walk with bags, 2 3hr trains, 7 subway/commuter trains, 2 airport shuttles, 4 planes and an extra day travel with hotel = €500 company savings...........not sure how worth it nor the lengths taken appreciated due to loss of translation and time to tell full story.
Hope you enjoyed.

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