Collab-Or-Ate

Only a month away!

Walking through the Frankfurt airport I couldn’t help but stop in wonder at this advertisement. There is no diversity in age, color, or gender and apparently that should make me want to invest my money with them?


In case you didn’t get a good look at those names and faces…

Spied this while buying replacement clothes in Scotland. (No, I didn’t buy it.) I guess Facebook has taken off in Scotland! Who knew this is the “tshirt everyone is talking about.”

I just got home from a long trip. It included my passport expiring while I flew over the Atlantic, my luggage vanishing into thin air after 10 days of being told it would arrive “tomorrow,” and a severely delayed Italian train causing me to end up spending the night at an airport motel in Frankfurt, Germany. Although I love to travel, this time I have never been so glad to return home!





A few things I learned on this trip to Europe:

1. Not all airport immigration officers or airline check-in agents check the expiration dates on passports. I got through Boston and Frankfurt and to the UK border (at Heathrow’s new Terminal 5) before anyone noticed that my passport expired the day before. (Technically it was valid when I took off on March 30th, and invalid when I landed March 31st.)




2. Apparently the airline that lets on a passenger with an expired passport gets fined £2000 ($US 4000).




3. You aren’t supposed to travel internationally with a passport expiring within 6 months, but trust me: you can definitely fly like this and no one will make any comments about it.




4. You can get an “emergency passport” made within a day at a US Consulate office. Bring your passport application and passport photos that comply with US passport photo requirements (not the requirements of the country you are in) and a credit card. If you are in this situation, hopefully you are in a country where they are polite and the office is open at a time when you are able to get there. (For me, this was getting to Edinburgh on a Thursday between 9 and noon. And they were very polite about it.) An emergency passport is valid for 1 year.




5. When an airline loses your luggage, the rules about reimbursement are very shady and ever changing. The main thing I’ve learned is there is a limit to how much they will reimburse.




6. Apparently the only items in your luggage the airline will reimburse are clothes and toiletries. Not cameras, electronics or perishables. What’s up with that?? My poor Nikon D40 is what I really care about. I also had 8lbs of Bit O’ Honey in the bag, but that’s another story.




7. Primark, in the UK, is my new favorite store — the clothes are trendy and awesomely inexpensive. It is like H&M, but much cheaper! Have to admit though, my new wardrobe is already falling apart, but it looked cool for that 1 week…




8. It is so much easier to travel when you don’t have luggage! And after living this way for almost 3 weeks, I now believe one does not need more than 2 pairs of pants and 2 pairs of shoes, no matter what the purpose of your trip. I’ve heard that before, but now I will live it.




9. Mainland Europe is so over the shoes and liquids thing. When I went through airport security, all I needed to do was take my laptop out of my bag and take off my coat. What a treat!




10. The rumors are true: Italian trains do not run on time. A 2-hour train trip from Venice to Florence took 4.5 hours and at one point the train was actually moving backwards. I learned this is not considered a good excuse for missing your flight, according to your German airline. So I’ve learned that you should not rely on Italian transportation to get you to your airplane on time. Next time, build in at least a day buffer.




11. After spending much time in UK, Italian and German airports, I have to say the pastries are better in Germany’s, the coffee is better in Italy’s (duh), and mmmm, well, they are good at losing your bags at Heathrow. Another observation is that it is easier to buy a replacement phone charger in Germany, but it is half the price in the UK. I couldn’t find one in Florence’s airport.
    
    

12. The other rumors are true: the Dollar is doing horribly against the British Pound and the Euro. So if you are in the US, I advise you drop what you are doing right now and go shopping! (Now if only we had Primark…)

After all this negativity, I have to say, the trip wasn’t all bad: the first conference was interesting, the second conference was stimulating and fun to see lots of friends, and traveling afterwards in Italy with Mike was exciting as always. I also had fabulous meals throughout Italy.

And I got a camera phone picture of my new favorite store:

I am listening to Eric Baumer present this paper at CHI 2008. It seems fitting to blog while listening….

Baumer, E., M. Sueyoshi, B. Tomlinson. 2008. “Exploring the Role of the Reader in the Activity of Blogging.” In: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008). Florence, Italy.

I think the paper will be available on Bill Tomlinson’s web page.

One of the interesting things Eric mentioned is that readers are much more forgiving of a blog of their friend than a blog of a stranger. They tolerate lame posts and poor visual design of friends, but not of strangers. (hmm, I hope I pass this stranger-test, but perhaps not always!) They also forgive erratic posting. I’m trying to fix that by posting this!

Both types of readers enjoy the random personal tidbits added to the otherwise professional blog, because it humanizes the blogger and makes the reader feel a personal connection to the blogger.

I recommend the paper based on his talk, and I definitely plan to read it.

Here’s my personal tidbit to keep you coming back for more… British Airways lost my luggage 9 days ago when I arrived in Scotland. I am now in Italy and have had to buy a new wardrobe, which is both excellent and kind of a pain. It has been quite an adventure and BA has been everything but helpful.