Those who know me know that I am no good at afternoon flights. I am always pushing my luck, I am usually spending more time negotiating a free upgrade instead of making my way to the gate and being a good little traveller, and they always have to page me because I am in the tax-free shops instead of at the boarding gate.

So I manage to work my way into business class on a comp upgrade, which is ALWAYS better when I am going home because I get drunk on the airline’s nickle/sheckle/kronor/whatever. The lounge is nice enough, but I almost miss my flight. I was too focused on nuts. Peanuts. They were really tasty. Of course, I was drunk within 10 minutes. On the flight I got more drunk. And now as I sit on the train writing this, I am surprised that I am this drunk. Well not really.

I have to say that Finland in the summer is growing on me. Last night I went out for drinks and dinner with my manager’s manager and his colleague. I realised that Finland is actually quite a nicely designed city, with the downtown areas quite well designed as a meeting point for friends, drinks, dinner, movies, shopping, etc. It also helps that my hotel is located right downtown and that I have easy access to everything.

In the past, I have never been able to make a summer trip to Helsinki. I usually have to come in the winter and that’s no fun. But visiting in the summer months has actually been quite nice in fact. I think that I shall plan to come back here on business again before September. Of course, it is already planned per order of my manager’s manager. It would be nice to get in a summer weekend here.

Oh yeah, and there was this mascot at breakfast with a smoker’s cough. All I could do was picture this kid-friendly mascot smoking a cigar. Breakfast was hilarious 😉

Of course, we all know that I am really bad at morning flights. I rarely make them on time and I always have to charm my way on to the next flight without getting charged and something to compensate me for being inconvenienced. So my flight to Finland this morning was no different. After threatening the taxi driver with something short of death if he didn’t maks it to the airport by 07.15 this morning (the trip normally takes 30 minutes which means he had to find a way to shave 11 minutes off the trip — and he did), it was airport security that would not cooperate. So the closed after I cleared security. So I got to the service center, and after a really nice conversation with the service center rep (both pleasant and good-looking), I managed to get onto the next flight for free and complimentary access to the lounge. So now I will make my 11.30 meeting just in time, but I hate that I intended to be early and did not succeed.

For those of you who do not live in Scandinavia, I wanted to offer you a bright perspective. During the winter, it is really dark and really cold. But during the summer, people are out, and the sun never really sets. Meaning it’s dusk or brighter…

Scandinavia Stumbles into Bad Lighting

Just because it has been a while. I am not photographing very well at the moment (I think I need to find a summer moisturizer which will reduce the level of oils in my skin…amongst other things), but these were 2 spur-of-the-moment pics…

pics behind the LJ-cut

My boss’s boss called me yesterday as I was traveling back from Norway to Stockholm (doesn’t he ever take a vacation?!?!). And we discussed some work that had to be done this weekend so I have done it. And then he reminded that I am supposed to be with him in Finland on Monday and Tuesday to work with some of our major accounts there. Holy shit! I completely forgot. So I had to call our company’s emergency travel service. They will charge me up the wazoo for tickets. Luckily I got a cheap hotel, which they might make me change so we can all stay at the same hotel.

So I get another night of travel and I get to be in Finland, which is nice enough in the summer. It could be worse I guess.

So as I am travelling, I have both a Palm Tungsten T3 and a Nokia 6600 phone. Now both are great devices (and the Technology section of The NYT gave Palm Treo 650 a great review), but I am wondering I really need two highly complimentary devices. I mean, for Nokia, the Symbian operating system is nothing short of amazing. If one were forced to live life organised on only a Nokia device, it would not be a punishment. But with a PDA, you get access to great applications and other possibilities even the most nicely designed mobile phone does not have (for example Pocket Quicken). So now more than ever I am beginning to move away from my position that a smart phone (PDA and mobile combined) is a single point of failure. I might just buy a Treo 650.