On a plane - mid 2004

I'm writing this on QF 001 as I wing my way towards Bangkok, where I have to spend the next week for work. At last QANTAS have introduced laptop power in business class as part of their new SkyBeds. yay. Previously I was dependent on the laptop battery life, not good when I do so many long business trips.
I'm not happy leaving Jo and Bun for a week, right in the critical 13th week too, the end of the first trimester. But I suppose I have to pay the bills somehow and soon we'll be back on one income.
It's 16 years since I was in Bangkok - in 1988 I was awarded an IBM Marketing Excellence Award which means you get to go to the IBM Recognition Event. Back in the 80's they were pretty impressive events. My friend Steve Ferreira and I took the opportunity to cash in the airfare and do some travelling in Europe first - we stayed with friends in London, Richard Thompson and his wife (Richard died of a brain tumour last year). Then we hired a car and drove around England (a trip that I repeated in 1992 with my friends Drew Morgan and Rob Gray). We flew to Paris from Heathrow, spent a few days there (Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, etc), and caught the TGV bullet train to Marseille. From there we picked up another car, drove along the Riveria through Nice to Monaco, then over the Alps to Geneva, Switzerland. From there we drove through Austria to Germany - Munich and finally Frankfurt from where we flew (eventually) to Bangkok for the Recognition Event. There, I was actually leading back to my original point.
Anyway now that I'm thinking of my previous trip I should jot down the significant memories from that trip.We went to evensong in Winchester Cathedral, just wandered in accidentally around sunset. Beautiful, ethereal atmosphere. In Paris we found a restaurant called "La Reine du Caves" where two pretty french girls let us flirt with them and signed a card for us "Bissous xx". The station master in Paris refused to understand my french and wouldn't talk in english until it was clear I wasn't going to move until we got our boarding tickets. In Marseille we were afraid the French Mafia would get us. In Nice we blundered into Carnivale and partied on the streets. A woman hit our hire car from behind in Nice and since the only french I knew for that situation was "d'accord" we let her drive away. We returned the car in Frankfurt - the car company never complained, thank God!
Since we didn't see the Alps on our road map we ended up getting in to Geneva very late, and had no Swiss currency. We ate McDonald's on our hotel beds, and went to a very seedy "Casino" that we found while wandering the streets.
Munich was beautiful: palaces and old saint's bones are my strongest memory. And staggering across the square from the beer hall, dropping and smashing the glass stein we'd stolen. We went to Dachua concentration camp. Grey, stony, and I felt sick.We flew out of Frankfurt airport, and it was just after the Lockerbie bombing so airline security was greatly upgraded. Our plane started to taxi and an engine failed - I ended up being put on a Lufthansa flight to Bangkok instead, which entailed a 9 hour wait in Frankfurt airport. I didn't speak German, and when boarding the security guard ripped open my carefully gift-wrapped Swiss Army Knife which I'd bought in Geneva, said "Good knife!" and gave it back to me. I couldn't understand the German announcements but followed the rest of the passengers out on to the tarmac where you were supposed to identify your bag before they would load it into the plane. Of course mine wasn't there, it was probably still on the British Airways plane that was getting its engine replaced. They let me on the plane, but 12 hours later I was in steaming Bangkok with the clothes on my back and nothing else for 2 days until they got my bag there.
Let's hope this trip is more comfortable!