It was a Thursday morning and I found myself eating breakfast on a ferry while enjoying some of the best scenery of BC’s West Coast. It was leg one of what would be a many leg journey around Western Canada and across Western Europe, all in the space of just over a week.
The whole thing started on a Saturday afternoon when my buddy Sean (you may remember him from such quality stories as “adventures with servers in the middle of the night”) messaged me trying to convince me to join him on an upcoming trip to Toronto. As it happened, I was booked that weekend to attend a co-worker’s wedding, but one thing led to another and somehow I ended up agreeing to go to Europe following the wedding in May. I’m still not really sure how Toronto turned into Europe, but with Sean, anything is possible.
What followed was one of the most chaotic trip planning sessions of my life. Because Sean was paying the way for myself and my business partner, Blair, we decided to leave the flight booking up to him. This was a mistake. 2 weeks before our scheduled departure and we still had no idea how we were getting there!
Eventually, Sean clued in and immediately realized that booking flights right before your departure is super expensive. The three of us compared notes and some 200 messages later we had flights booked. Yay! I was going to attend the wedding in Calgary, then pick up a flight from there to London. Sean, his brothers (yes, this had turned into something of a family vacation) and Blair were all booked on a separate itinerary to fly from Vancouver to London with a stopover in Calgary. In theory we would all end up on the same plane to London, though on different itineraries.
Then, just a week before departure another wrench got thrown into this plan – Our airline to London was Westjet, who’s pilots had served strike notice for the very week we were flying. Hooray! The chaos continued!
We then scrambled to re-book flights, and after another flurry of messages we had a new plan – I would fly back from Calgary, then we would all fly direct from Vancouver to London on British Airways. Sean ended up booking different tickets for himself, since he flatly refuses to fly economy and there was no premium upgrade available on our flight. The rest of us were naturally stuck in economy. From my perspective, it was a bit more of a headache, but at least we had confirmed tickets on an airline that wasn’t set to strike in the coming days.
Finally, departure day arrived and I began my epic journey to get all the way to… Calgary.
Living on an island has it’s advantages, but also it’s drawbacks – one of which is that it’s expensive to go anywhere. Flying out from Victoria would cost me around $200 more then flying out from Vancouver, but as it happened I have a buddy and co-worker who lives in Surrey. We arranged to book tickets on the same flight out of Abbotsford (just outside of Vancouver). The only catch was that I was to meet him at his place, which, when using public transit means a roughly 4 hour long journey via ferry, train and bus – and so it was that I found myself sitting on a ferry that morning preparing for a commute that would be longer then my total flying time to Calgary.
The whole leg ended up working out beautifully. My bus and train connections were timed in such a way that I was stepping off one mode of transportation and immediately onto the next. I don’t think I waited longer then 5 minutes at any one stop. After around 3 and a half hours I made it to my buddy’s place and the pair of us, along with his partner, headed out to the Abbotsford airport.
After what was an uneventful flight we found ourselves in Calgary and just after 6PM we caught an Uber to our Airbnb where we would need to deal with our first hiccup of the trip.
In the check-in instructions, we were told to dial a number on the building’s call-box, which we did and spoke to the host, however, the front door failed to unlock. After a few failed attempts our apologetic host said he’d send someone out in 30 minutes to let us in.
Having some time to kill, we decided to head across the street to a cannabis store as my buddy’s partner wanted to pick up some vape cartridges. The store itself was nothing special, but the girl who served us was amazing. We got to talking and she was more then happy to shit all over Calgary and treat us in great detail as to why it was an awful place to live. The four of us had a good time bitching about the challenges of our respective hometowns; truly a hilarious experience.
By this point some other customers had arrived, so the three of us took our leave and wandered back outside to wait in front of our building. What happened next you can’t make up.
As we found ourselves navigating the sidewalk, a group of guys in a car pulled up beside us, and seeing our suitcases said something to the affect of “Get back to the airport, it’s awful here!” Apparently shitting on Calgary is a favorite past time?
We waited around next to “Pizza Face” – a pizza place with a logo that we felt really encompassed our Calgary experience so far – a face with an expression of total apathy. Our host finally arrived and let us up to the apartment and we took some time to decompress.
The accommodations were actually pretty nice; two bedrooms, spacious living room, kitchen area and a larger-then-reasonable bathroom. While this worked out well for us, it really highlighted to me the problems that Airbnb can create in a rental market – here we were, a couple of travelers taking up an apartment that should be rented to a resident of the city.
After some time, the three of us decided to visit Pizza Face to scare up some dinner. I was actually presently surprised; while the logo said mediocre stoner pizza, the actual product was pretty darn good. I would classify it as a New York style pizza with some creative toppings to choose from. We opted to sit down and eat at the restaurant, which I guess doesn’t happen very often owing to the double takes people kept giving us as they walked by. Either that or the group of us screamed “out of town” and people were trying to figure out where we belonged.
We got to chatting with the dude at the counter and bought some quality Pizza Face merch along with our meal – that logo really spoke to us. As we were getting ready to leave, my buddy had what I consider to be the best idea of the trip; why not get another Pizza Face hat as a wedding present for our co-worker! I was already trying to think of the most confusing wedding present we could give, and this took the cake! Our friend at the counter even tossed the third hat in for free, along with a Pizza Face frisbee! We finished up by asking him what he thought of Calgary to add to our survey of the locals. He answered along the lines of “It’s fine but it’s no Vancouver,” So for the final tally we’re going to put down two anti-Calgary and one pro-Vancouver. After that we headed back and turned in for the night since we all felt we had hit our peak for the day.
The next day was the day of the wedding and we all took it pretty easy to get started. I did take the opportunity to head out on a walk to grab us some coffees, and while I only wandered around a small section of the city I didn’t really get any negative vibes. Really, it just felt like any generic larger North American city; skyscrapers, traffic and people wandering around. One big departure from my status quo was a complete lack of bike lanes on any of the roads; while bike lane construction in BC can be a little over the top, I didn’t spy anything remotely resembling a bike line in Calgary. The result was that people with electric scooters would end up on the sidewalk creating some interesting walking conflict. The sidewalks and crosswalks were in general serviceable, although they were seriously worn down. As it turns out we must have been staying in the nightlight district because I was blown away by all the bars and restaurants along the main drag. A lot of independent coffee shops as well which was a nice touch.
The wedding itself was a blast, though I’ll confess the group of us work colleagues (the 3 in my party plus two more) were probably the most awkward people there. Our gift of Pizza Face merch did go over quite well, though I realized after the fact that we probably should have included a gift certificate! Hindsight is always 20/20.
After the wedding the trio of us walked back to the apartment since it was now cool enough to move around the city without being uncomfortable. I was impressed at the scale of the night life in the city. Our apartment was right in the middle of the entertainment district, so while I was expecting throngs of people in our neck of the woods, the reality was that on every street we passed there were restaurants and bars overflowing with people. After 9PM the city really seems to spring to life. While the city has a vibrant night life it also has a large community of assholes who rev their engines at all hours of the night. Sleeping with earplugs became a must since from sundown to sunrise motorcycles and modded trucks shattered the evening with their excessive engine noises.
On the final full day in Calgary I needed to make a trip out to a computer store to pick up a couple of SSDs for the upcoming work in the Netherlands. I chose that opportunity to take public transit as I find it legitimately interesting to compare public transit options between cities. While Calgary does have an LRT, it didn’t run where I needed to go so my trip was limited to buses. The buses did run on schedule, but were infrequent. And based on the number of people cramming themselves onto the bus, there is a clear demand for more service. Unlike most cities who use RFID cards to process fares, Calgary uses a smartphone app to generate a QR code you present to a scanner. They also have paper tickets if that’s more your thing.
Not much else to report for this leg of the trip other then to note that I had the misfortune of visiting Calgary at a sub-optimal time, smoke from wildfires made the air thick and difficult to breath and it was HOT, averaging 28 degrees which is abnormal this early int he summer. I think in cooler weather, with better air it would have been a lot more fun. Overall my highlights were the large number of restaurants, bars (and coffee places), a cool bar down the street with Pinball machines and other retro games and, of course, Pizza Face.
With the first chunk of my journey over, it was time to turn to the next phase – shenanigans in Western Europe.
As I’ve mentioned before, I am co-owner of a small hosting company and we have a presence in both Oslo and Amsterdam. Due to some under-powered hardware, our Olso server was filled to capacity so we have been meaning to get it upgraded for a while. I also have a personal server in the Netherlands that I use to vacuum up European satellite feeds for personal use. I figured that since we were going to Europe anyway to help Sean, we might as well upgrade our Oslo server, and then I would use the decommissioned Oslo machine to upgrade my personal satellite server. It would be busy, but the number of tasks was still reasonable for the length of trip.
Well, it turns out that our trip was also taking place at the same time as the annual RIPE membership meeting, and, wouldn’t it be nice to attend some of that? Also, I was having trouble finding someone local to inject my latest NFC Implant, so I figured I might as well try to find someone in Holland to perform that procedure during the same trip. And, wouldn’t you know it? each of these items was taking place in a different city. Overall, I was trying to cram so much into this one week that it became quite the logistical challenge to make it all work. But we did.
First thing first, let’s get to Oslo.
Sean’s brothers along with Blair and myself were flying from Vancouver to London. In London, Sean’s brothers were joining him and flying to Amsterdam, while Blair and I would grab a flight to Oslo. The plan was to then overnight in Olso, swap the server the next morning and fly back to Amsterdam that evening. I figured the server swap should be pretty quick, but we gave ourselves a good 8 hours to get it done, which would put us back in Amsterdam around 6PM the next day.
Finally, the day of departure from Calgary arrived, and I boarded my flight to Vancouver. The flight itself was uneventful, but I was surprised to see my bag already on one of the baggage carousals prior to my arrival – it seems that my bag was actually sent on a different flight to Vancouver which left 30 minutes before me. While it was convenient, I hoped this was actually intentional rather then a very fortunate accident – I was hauling some gear which was critical to the success of the trip – both for the company goals and my own.
Blair, along with Sean’s parents picked me up at the airport (they had just finished dropping Sean off for his premium flight) and the four of us headed back to the house since we had a number of hours before our scheduled departure.
A few hours later, after some lunch and a quick baggage re-balance, the four of us found ourselves deposited back at YVR waiting for our flight to London.
After some dinner at the airport we would hit our first real snafu of the trip – our plane was late to arrive into Vancouver delaying our departure by around 20 minutes. Since our connection in London was more then 4 hours, I wasn’t concerned; which, as it turned out, was kind of foreshadowing for the entire trip.
We boarded the plane and our 20 minute delay, turned into an hour as the pilots worked through some technical issues, it then turned into more then 2 hours after the issues with the plane meant we had to plot a new flight plan which was slower. We were now slated to arrive in London 2 hours later then originally planned, however, because we still had around two hours to make the connecting flight, I was more annoyed then concerned.
Finally, the airplane’s loudspeaker crackled to life: “ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our final descent into London Heathrow, please make sure your tray tables are fastened into an upright position.” Finally we were being let off this tin can!
I’ve been to a few large airports, but nothing had prepared me for the size and chaos of London Heathrow. Our flight had arrived in terminal 5 and our next flight was departing from terminal 2, no problem I thought – I had transferred terminals in other airports without issue.
We breezed through passport control and found ourselves at baggage claim. It took a while, but eventually our luggage popped up on the carousal; over-sized cardboard server box included. A few minutes later we found ourselves leaving the terminal. We got Sean and his brothers linked up, then Blair and I rushed off to make our next flight.
Did I mention that London Heathrow is a massive airport? To connect between terminals, you actually have to leave the airport and take the Tube (the London Underground) to the other terminals. After exiting the Tube we found ourselves running through a maze of tunnels, dodging people and frantically reading signs. At last, after about 45 minutes we found our way to the checkin counter for our airline.
We walked up to the kiosk and checked in, but the kiosk errored out when trying to print baggage tags. Shit. Into the assistance line we went – stuck behind a whole series of people trying to sort out visa applications, finally it was our turn to head up to the counter – but by then it was too late, while we were still an hour before departure it was too late to check our bags – we had officially missed our flight. To their credit, the people at the airline counter did their best to try and get us booked on another flight, however, all flights to Oslo were booked solid until the next day, and the first available flight the next morning was too late to allow us to visit the datacenter and catch our return flight to Amsterdam. Our choice was to either fly directly to Amsterdam, or we could make it to Oslo the next morning, but be stuck there until Wednesday. We opted to just defer the Oslo portion of the trip and try to make it directly to Amsterdam and catch up with Sean later that night.
As it would happen, luck was far from on our side and all available flights from of London to Amsterdam were booked solid until the next day. Sean, to his credit, even tried to swap his and his business partner’s seats with Blair and I, since they both had a place in town to stay, however, making such a change at the 11th hour was impossible. Blair and I were officially stuck in London.
Side note, Sean’s business partner was an interesting fellow to meet. The description we were given by Sean was “find a guy who looks like Mr Bean” and this was accurate – we found our Mr Bean look-alike sitting at an airport coffee shop pensively watching the world go by. After introducing ourselves we got him pointed to the check in counter and sent our checked bags off with him to Amsterdam, so at least we wouldn’t have to drag those around London. Afterwards we got him pointed to the security line and made sure that he got though, since Sean was concerned he wouldn’t find his way through, apparently getting into trouble at airports was not uncommon for him. This trip just kept getting more and more interesting.
By this time we had been in the terminal for more then 4 hours and it was starting to get late. Kudos to the guy at the British Airways counter who was kind enough to check in on us and give us directions and advice.
We finally managed to find some flights out of London’s second largest airport – London Gatwick bright and early the next morning, so we booked a hotel at that airport and caught a coach bus across town to the airport. It was 11pm by the time we checked into the hotel, and with our flights leaving first thing the next morning we were only going to get a few hours of sleep.
Not wanting a repeat of the previous day’s connection nightmare Blair and I made sure to head down to the departures area with plenty of time. In the end, it was a good thing we did, since the scanners at security wouldn’t accept the boarding pass on my phone, so I needed to go back to the check-in counter and get a paper copy printed. Problems were apparently going to be a recurring theme on this trip. We finally cleared security and made it into the departures hall, only to discover an interesting quirk of British Aviation – the gates are not assigned to flights until just a few minutes before departure, so rather then being able to wait at the gate we were forced to loiter in a central area, then rush to make our flight at a gate halfway across the airport. Not something I had seen anywhere else in the world, and not something I enjoyed or would recommend. We did manage to have time for breakfast, so I treated myself to a full English breakfast, which was good, though I’m still not sold on beans first thing in the morning. Finally, after a lengthy delay on the tarmac (1+ hour) due to not enough available airspace, we took off and Blair and I found ourselves in Amsterdam.
Our original plan was to leverage public transit to get between destinations. We had both used the rail service in the Netherlands in the past, and were reasonably happy with it, however, due to our constant stream of issues we decided a rental car would be the better choice since it would allow us more flexibility to complete as much as possible in our newly compressed timeline. For some reason I thought rental cars would be expensive in Europe, but the car with unlimited mileage and extra insurance only ran us about EUR 250 for the 3 days we needed it. For the first time since leaving Vancouver we finally seemed to catch a break.
Since we had a car, we decided to make a beeline for our first datacenter in Dronten which housed my personal server. While there was no work to be done at this stage (since I didn’t have access to the decommissioned server from Oslo), I wanted to get my access cards to the facility sorted out as they had changed systems in the two years since I was last there. Once the cards were sorted I’d be able to visit the facility any time day or night which would give us the ability to accelerate our timelines.
Fortunately, there were no real issues with this part of the trip and we made the hour long drive to the DC; got cards sorted and then began the long drive back. On the way back, we got a message from Sean asking if we could pick him up from the airport since a girl he knew had flown in. Trips to the airport would turn out to be a recurring theme. We made good time, got Sean, his partner and the girl all loaded into our 4 seat rental (that’s right, more people then seats!) and began the drive to our accommodations – a 4 bedroom bungalow out in the country.
Let me take a minute to describe this place. It was billed as a holiday bungalow park and a good place to get away from the busy city. Well, this is accurate because our drive took us down increasingly narrow country roads filled with tractors and other farm machinery. This was truly rural Holland! Sean would later explain that he booked this place because he thought it was close to his datacenter which was in a place called Halfweg, but as it turns out “Halfweg” is “Halfway” in Dutch and there are multiple “Halfweg’s” in the Netherlands. As you might have guessed, this was the wrong Halfweg so commuting to Sean’s DC would also be a pain in the ass.
30 minutes later we had finally arrived. Sean’s bothers greeted us with cheers and Blair and I plopped down for a well deserved rest.
We quickly discovered that our bungalow accommodations were bare-bones; including basically nothing – not even soap or toilet paper. Frankly, I’m not even sure how the boys managed to make it through one night without a shopping trip but at least we had a car and could take a run into town. The four of us (sans Sean and his girl who were going to spend some “quality time”) at the bungalow crammed into the car and made the short drive into Noordwijkerhout in search of a supermarket. The town itself was quaint and exactly what I expected of a small European city – narrow streets, stone buildings and restaurant patios everywhere.
We found a supermarket and 200 Euros later we managed to get everything we needed to bring the bungalow up to standard. Sean’s brothers kept commenting at how cheap all the food and alcohol was, and we ended up with way more alcohol then I think was reasonable. I took the opportunity to introduce my companions to the concept of Stroopwafel, which is a popular Dutch dessert. I picked up 3 bags of the stuff which seemed like a lot, but by the end of the trip it was all gone so it was clearly a hit.
We wrapped up our shopping trip without incident, though I did feel a bit like the obnoxious foreigners as we wandered around in our large group chatting away. I need to learn how to say “sorry” in Dutch.
Upon our successful return from town we decided to make a trek out for dinner, as all of us were reasonably hungry. The bungalow park we were staying at had an onsite restaurant, Mamas, which was well reviewed, however, with our luck it was fully booked that evening for a wedding so we needed to find alternate arrangements. Out came Google Maps and we found the next closest restaurant – Como and Co just down the street.
We arrived at the restaurant, which was an interesting little shack on the shore of a lake. The place felt almost like something you would expect to see on Gilligan’s island – lots of wicker furniture, log benches and a ramshackle building that resembled a beach house. Since we had a large group we were seated outside, which was fine as it allowed us to enjoy the nice weather and an adorable family of ducklings. As it turned out, driving to this place was totally unnecessary as it was less then a 10 minute walk along the lake-shore from our bungalow. Sean along with his girlfriend/companion (I’m not entirely sure what the relationship there is) joined us after getting horribly confused trying to find us at Mamas during the wedding.
After dinner we decided to finish the day by making a trip into Amsterdam since Sean and his brothers were somewhat of cannabis connoisseurs and wanted to experience some of Amsterdam’s famous Coffee Shops. Our trip into town was uneventful, while Blair and I drove with the brothers, the rest of the gang caught an Uber to the city center. We found a decent parking spot and linked up with the rest of the crew and generally made an evening of wandering around the infamous Red Light district, drinking beers and popping into coffee shops. After a few hours of this and Sean getting kicked out of at least one coffee shop for trying to circumvent the maximum 5 grams rule by getting his brothers to buy for him we decided to call it a night and head back to our little bungalow in the middle of no where. We split up and I joined Blair and the brothers (almost sounds like a band name at this point) on their quest to find the rental car.
The next 10 minutes belonged in a Monty Python sketch. We had the presence of mind to drop a maps pin where we had parked the car, but upon arriving at the pin our car was no where to be found. Up the street we walked, down the street we walked but no car. Eventually, we determined that we were in fact in the correct spot – the canal was the same and the car in front of ours was the same, but our spot was mysteriously empty. Had… our car been stolen!?
Turns out that while our car was missing, it had not, in fact, been stolen; rather we managed to park in a delivery-only spot and our car had been towed and impounded. While not as bad as being stolen (that would have been a fun call to the rental company) it did throw a major wrench into our night.
Out came our phones and while one of the bothers hailed an Uber, Blair located the impound lot for the city. When our ride showed up and we explained the situation, our driver asked why would we park there. “Because we’re idiots” was our reply.
30 minutes and 50 Euros later we found ourselves being buzzed into the reception area at the city’s impound lot. Thank god they were open 24 hours.
The women at the counter was really nice about the whole thing. I’m sure she was used to suffering through all kinds of abuse, and the group of us was more apologetic and bemused then anything else. We managed to get away with only paying the 375 Euro impound fee, since we managed to pick the car up before midnight they wived the daily storage fee. The one silver lining in all of this was the fact that the impound lot was in the direction we were already heading, so at least we got a free ride out of the city!
On the way back, we spotted a McDonalds on the side of the road and decided to stop and pick up some cheeseburgers. Recall that the brothers were high as kites, so 14 cheeseburgers seemed like a reasonable purchase at 1AM. Before long we found ourselves back at the bungalow, and all was forgiven when we pulled out the bag of cheesburgers.
Thus concluded our brief encounter with Amsterdam parking enforcement. Lesson of the day – don’t fuck with parking in the city or you will literally be towed. In the end though, I’m impressed with how quick the whole transaction was, and the fact that beyond paying the fee there really weren’t any consequences. It basically amounted to a really expensive, really inconvenient parking ticket. Still though, don’t fuck with Amsterdam parking enforcement.
I crashed in the bunk bed above Sean’s associate which was a throwback to summer camp as a child – probably the last time I had actually ever slept in a bunk bed. By the time my head hit the pillow I was beat and had my first solid night’s sleep since Vancouver some two days prior.
The next morning I awoke to sunlight streaming through the window directly onto my face which meant that any hope I had of getting back to sleep was lost. I wandered downstairs to find everyone else still very much asleep, which was not surprising considering the late night we all had. I took stock of the situation and decided the best use of my time was to unbox the the server we had carted from Vancouver and ensure that it still powered up and booted into an OS. I got as far as unboxing the server before realizing I was missing one crucial piece of the puzzle – the power cord. Mercifully by this time Blair had awoken and we began to prepare for our trip into town to purchase this critical accessory. As we packed our backpacks Sean’s associate had lumbered out of his room and joined us on our early morning adventure.
Our first stop was to “Premium PC” with a name and logo that looked like it belonged in a model from Garry’s Mod. Blair managed to confuse the guy at the counter by asking for a server power cable, but I set him straight by clarifying it was a standard PC power cable. The guy had a good sense of humor – When he asked me how long I needed and I replied “2m” he told me I was in luck, because his cable came with an extra 3 meters of cable. 15 ft of European PC power cable later the trio of us found ourselves at a breakfast joint not far from the bungalow.
Breakfast was good, although my breakfast platter was certainly different then something I would have been given back home. Luncheon meat, sliced cheese, two types of bread, a yogurt parfait and two tiny pancakes topped off my breakfast ensemble. Fed and happy, the three of us headed back to the bungalow to see how the rest of our motley crew was doing.
By the time we got back, things were hopping. The rest of the group was up and Sean was even raring to get to his datacenter and get some work done, and so Blair, Sean his associate and I all piled back into our little car and zipped off to the Cogent datacenter to help Sean with some of his work.
By the time noon rolled around, we had gotten a few things done, but Blair and I needed to take off for a couple hours to take care of some of our own company’s chores. We agreed to swing back by Cogent once we were done to assess the state of affairs.
Our task was to reclaim a server that we had abandoned in place some two years previous. The server was originally intended to host customer virtual machines but due to the poor quality of the provider’s network this was quickly abandoned. The server was then slated to become a development environment, however, I managed to lock ourselves out of it after misapplying some firewall rules. The machine was then left to rot in place as we continued to pay what amounted to a storage fee for the next two years. Well, now that COVID was subsiding and air travel was possible again, we were finally able to visit this datacenter and pull the server out.
Retrieving this server was all the more important since missing our Oslo flight meant that I now didn’t have a server to replace my personal sever with. This facility was in the town of Worden some 90 minutes Southeast of the airport so the noon departure time meant that we would arrive some 30 minutes before our scheduled 2PM access window. The drive was fortunately uneventful and we got buzzed into the front gate without incident.
What happened next is something I have not yet experienced at any other datacenter – I was sent a code by text message which allowed the front desk to buzz me right up into the suite of our provider. For the next 20 minutes I had unrestricted access to all of their gear while I tried to locate our server. I could have done anything I wanted, including pulling out every power cable in sight! Fortunately for all the other customers, I’m not an asshole and I only unplugged the network cable from one wrong server before correctly identifying ours. Some rack-gymnastics later and I managed to pull the server out of the rack without disturbing any of the network cables that had been unhelpfully run directly in front of it. At last, I had a server to install in Dronten and things finally seemed to be going well.
Blair and I bid our goodbyes to the front desk guard and found ourselves on our way back to the airport to liaise with Sean.
It turned out that after we left, not much more work got done so Sean and co went back to the airport to start drinking. I asked why on earth they went to the airport to drink and Sean replied with it was the only bar they knew, which, knowing Sean is an answer that totally made sense. Why bother discovering new places when you had a watering hole at the airport?
After more then a few wrong turns, and one trip around the airport the long way, the four of us found ourselves back on the road to the bungalow, new/old server in tow.
Back at the place, I loaded up the two drives I had purchased in Calgary, plugged in the server and prepared a USB flash drive to begin installing an operating system. I then realized the second missing piece of my server maintenance puzzle – a monitor.
Now, while I did have the presence of mind to bring with me a 7” monitor for just such a situation, I also made the mistake of lending that monitor out to Sean, who, naturally had left it at the Cogent data center we just came from. Fuck.
Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) Sean’s associate was flying in his girlfriend and needed to pick her up at the airport. The Cogent datacenter is really close to the airport, and since he was on Sean’s datacenter account the four of us could swing by the DC, pick up the monitor and then head to the airport all in short order. This plan actually worked, and within the hour I found myself drinking a pint in Sean’s favorite airport bar.
The next series of steps went surprisingly well. We got the girl, got back to the bungalow and I managed to install my operating system all within short order. By this time it was now well after 8PM, so Blair and I piled back into the car to begin the long drive to Drotnen and replace my personal server.
I figured in a best-case scenario it would take me about an hour to swap the server and install my new satellite cards so when we arrived around 10PM I was already bracing myself for another late night. Of course, in order to replace the server I had to actually get to it, which proved to be slightly more complicated then I originally thought.
Once you get though the front door, the datacenter has a device called a man trap. This specialized door is designed to only let one person through at a time, and because there is a fingerprint scanner inside the man trap it is possible to positively identify each person passing through. Blair managed to make it through the door without issue, but somewhere along the way I managed to screw up the sequence of scanning my card, entering my PIN and scanning my fingerprint. The door rejected me outright and sent me back into the lobby. No biggie, I figured I’d just try again. No bueno; the man trap wouldn’t open anymore. More concerning then me being locked out was Blair being locked inside, since the man trap wouldn’t open from either end. Well then, this was a fine pickle.
I sat on the floor long enough to pull out my laptop and login to the customer ticketing system. I was about to open a high priority ticket and get charged middle of the night rates when I figured I’d try the door one more time, in cause it had a timeout. Hallelujah it did! I managed to get through the man trap successfully this time and enter the inner sanctum of the facility.
Recall I estimated a best case scenario was an hour to swap the servers, well it turns out my time estimation is just poo because everything basically went off without a hitch and it still took me about two hours to get it all done. By half past midnight Blair and I were packing up our bags and heading back for the long drive to the bungalow.
We got back around 2:30 AM and I crashed on the couch to give my former roommate and his girl some privacy. Another long day done and another dead to the world sleep.
By the time I woke up bright and early on Thursday morning I was feeling pretty good. We were finally making forward progress, we had new flights to and from Oslo booked and things were starting to look a lot better. As I was the first one awake yet again, I decided to start configuring some of the satellite tuners on my new server.
As luck would have it all was not OK in Dronten. One of my tuners was giving some really inconsistent behavior and no matter what I tried I could not get it to co-operate. By this time I also realized I had forgotten my hoodie at the datacenter and while a hoodie can be FedEx’d, my other problem likely required onsite intervention. Back to the car Blair and I went to begin yet another long drive to Dronten.
By the time we got there I wasn’t willing to screw around. I straight up replaced the questionable tuner card, actually validated all my feeds were working and grabbed my hoodie. We were in and out in under an hour this time, which was good because I had another appointment booked for 2PM.
Regular readers of my blog will know I am the proud owner of an NFC implant. I use this sub-dermal piece of technology to store some critical backup data as well as open doors. Well it turns out getting a single implant can be a bit of a gateway since less then two years later I had booked an appointment to install a newer, much larger implant in my other wrist. I won’t go into a lot of detail, but the Apex Flex is a next generation cryptographic device that can store a colossal amount of NDEF data, act as a U2F security key for passwordless logins and store all your 2FA login codes among other functions. Suffice to say after the success of my first implant I was sold on the capabilities of this next one.
I had my first implant installed by Russ Foxx in Vancouver, but since that first install Russ was mainly working out of Ontario, and there was no one else I was able to locate nearby to do the install. Hence, when I found out I was going to the Netherlands, I figured I may as well book an installation for the same trip since I would have to travel to get this implant installed anyway.
The only catch was the installer I had found was in Breda; in the extreme south of the Netherlands – only about 5km from the border with Belgium. The studio was a 2 hour drive from Dronten, so Blair and I were cutting it close when we left the DC at noon.
As it turned out, the motorway gods were kind to us and we managed to make it to Breda only about 15 minutes later then planned. We located a street parking spot, and after our misadventure in Amsterdam I made sure there was no signage anywhere close by that indicating parking here was problem. We found our way to the piercing studio where I met Willam and his apprentice. Willam is a super nice guy; friendly and eager to make sure I understood everything that was going on. He was even nice enough to make me a sandwich since Blair and I had missed lunch during our drive. Willam aligns with my experience with much of the body-modding community I’ve met to date – they might seem intimidating with all their tattoos and piercings, but they’re actually really nice, professional people.
The actual implantation process was fairly quick, though I did find it more painful then my first implant, which makes sense as this thing was roughly 4x the size. After the procedure Blair and I headed back to the car, which fortunately was right where we had left it. Since we were only a few kilometers from the Belgium border, we decided why not take the time to stop into Belgium to add another country on our list.
After the briefest of stops, we began the long drive back to the Airbnb, where we planned to decompress for an hour ahead of our flight to Oslo that night.
So far on this trip, the one thing we had mercifully escaped was congestion. Every time we were out on the roads we remarked how easy it was to get around by road in the Netherlands. Well that luck was about to change and in a large way.
Our route back from Breda took us through the big cities of Rotterdam and The Huage, which as it turns out experience rush hour congestion just like any other major city. While our drive from Dronten to Breda took about two hours, our drive from Breda back to the bungalow – about half the total distance took more then two and a half. All of the extra time was due to congestion. The traffic just outside Rotterdam is something that I had only ever experienced in some of the largest cities in the US during rush hour – kilometers of cars barely moving in any direction. At one point we were having a race with a caterpillar, and let me tell you that caterpillar left us in it’s dust. Finally, after an eternity of stop and go, we managed to get past the line of cars heading into Rotterdam and pulled onto the motorway which bypassed the city.
Of course, all the time we lost in traffic ate into our recuperation time, so by the time we arrived at the bungalow, we barely had enough time to grab our server box for the flight to Oslo and make a beeline for the airport.
Once at the airport we quickly made our way to the departures area and proceeded to try and check in for our flight at the kiosk. No dice – “you are not able to check in here.” Great. With only around 90 minutes before our scheduled departure we began searching for the checkin counter for Norwegian airlines – our carrier to Oslo. Our attempts to find our checkin counter highlighted a deficiency I’ve observed at most airports I have traveled through – there are never good directions to find a specific check-in counter. Once you have your boarding pass, there is generally great signage helping you find your gate, but finding that elusive check-in counter in the first place? Good luck.
The first airport employee we found told us to go to one counter, the person at that counter told us to go to a second counter, and the person at that counter told us that no, Norwegian airlines was actually on the other side of the bloody airport!
With 80 minutes before our flight we sprinted to the other end of the airport only to get stuck in line behind a load of people processing visa applications. I was getting strong flashbacks from our previous experience at London Heathrow.
Thank god, we made it to the check-in counter by the skin of our teeth, got the server box checked and our boarding passes printed. With less then an hour before our flight we headed to security.
Security in Amsterdam is interesting. While most airports require you to take out large electronics and remove jewelry, belts and other accessories, Amsterdam Schipol makes a point of telling you to leave everything in your bag and continue to wear your jewelry and accessories. We breezed through security and managed to make it to our plane with time to spare.
Our flight to Oslo was uneventful, and we arrived at our airport hotel well before midnight – something that didn’t seem to happen a lot on this trip. I passed out for another night of dreamless sleep.
Friday morning. I awoke to the blaring sound of my alarm. This was the first time on this trip I actually needed my alarm to wake me up; I must have been tired. Blair and I headed down for a famous Scandinavian breakfast which includes meats, sausage, cheese, bread and just about everything else you can imagine. By 9AM we had checked out and were on our way to the train for the next leg of our Norwegian adventure.
While we advertise our services as being in Oslo, the reality is they are actually about a 2 hour train ride from Oslo in the small town of Sandefjord. The town is just big enough for a few restaurants, a whaling museum and a small airport, it doesn’t even have Uber operating in the town. After getting off the train I was worried about finding a cab, but fortunately standing at the taxi stand for a few minutes was enough to prompt driver to pick us up.
I am happy to report that our trip to this datacenter was entirely uneventful – we managed to swap our server and bring all our customers online. The folks at the DC were even kind enough to let us leave our old server behind for recycling, since checking it would have been a pain in the ass. The only other thing that really stood out to me was the cooler full of Monster energy drinks. I wish I had taken a picture, because this place had more Monster then most grocery stores!
Our flight back to Amsterdam was departing from TORP airport in town, so it was only a short cab ride to get to the terminal. We managed to check in with plenty of time to spare, and even enjoyed one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever had in my life – A $35 Caesar salad. Don’t get me wrong – it was a good salad with lots of chicken and chunks of bacon, but $35? Seriously?
I didn’t realize it, but our tickets for the flight back were actually booked in business class. It makes sense now since they were so expensive, I guess it was the only thing left. I wasn’t terribly hungry, but the flight included a sandwich and a drink so I was sure to take both since we had technically paid for them.
We landed on time, and for the first time on this trip there were no bags to worry about! Huzzah! Leaving from the airport this time was a breeze.
By this point, we had received a series of texts from Sean asking us to meet him at the Cogent datacenter, so upon landing we hailed an Uber (since we had already returned our rental care for the trip) and met him at the facility.
Upon arrival I was assaulted by a scene of total chaos. Sean was running to and fro, Sean’s associate was sitting on the ground with a pile of CPUs in his hand, some other guy I had never met was frowning at a monitor on a crash cart, boxes were strewn everywhere and pieces of hardware were stashed on every flat surface available. We had arrived just in time to witness the total shitshow that was the bulk of Sean’s datacenter project work.
My initial impressions aside, the reality was a bit better. While the evening was hectic, and I shudder to think how it would have gone without Blair and myself, Sean did have a plan and we did manage to accomplish most of what he wanted to do. Believe it or not, this was actually the most relaxed I had felt on the trip. All my tasks were done for the trip and I was just following instructions and moving servers, with no vested interest as to if they came online or not. Racking servers when they’re not yours and not your customers is actually kinda fun. By the time we finished at Cogent it was still about midnight; another late night for me.
After arriving back at the bungalow, I went straight to sleep. I knew we had a 10AM flight the next morning and knowing our previous airport misadventures I wanted to get an early start to avoid the inevitable check-in problems.
Friday morning. 6AM. My alarm blares and I manage to drag myself out of a deep slumber. Sean is awake, the brothers are awake and none of us are particularly happy to be up at this time. I brush my teeth, grab a quick shower, shove the rest of my personal items into my bag and bang on Blair’s door to wake him up. By 6:30 we’re ready to go and someone pulls out their phone to hail an Uber. “No Uber’s available.” Fuck. I guess we should have pre-booked a cab. By 6:45 everyone is scrambling to find a ride. I look up cab companies – the earliest one can get here is 7:45. Finally Blair hits paydirt with Uber Black – the premium service. 7:10 a Mercedes E-Class pulls up and we begin loading our luggage.
We get our luggage loaded in record time and we all pile into the SUV, breathing a sigh of relief that we finally got something, only the driver isn’t leaving. Turns out the four of us, plus our luggage was too heavy and the suspension on the vehicle was bottoming out. We look at each other and decide that one of us potentially missing the flight was better then four of us, so Blair being the heaviest is left behind to try and find a second ride.
Our driver was really good and hauled ass all the way to the airport. We arrive around 90 minutes before our flight and waltz up to the self check-in kiosk. The kiosk allows us to check in, but fails to print baggage tags. Christ almighty I am beginning to hate the self check-in kiosk’s. We try a second time, with similar results and so it was once again time to join the end of a long check-in line full of people with all kinds of problems. Time ticks by and one person, then a second are helped. 75 minutes till departure. More London Heathrow vibes. While we are still 4 or 5 people away from the counter Blair arrives at the airport and joins me in the lineup. By this point we were closing in on one hour before departure and the brothers had taken off since their bags were small enough to technically qualify as carry-on. 5 minutes later and another check-in agent walks up to the line. “Anyone in this line going to Dallas, come with me – we want to get you onto your flight.” Hallelujah! Maybe we would make it home after all.
We get checked in, drop our bag and proceed to passport control and then security. This security checkpoint was more in line with what we were used to – take out all electronics and liquids, jewelry and accessories in a bin and take your shoes off. I guess it’s just flights within Europe’s Schengen zone that enjoy a streamlined security process.
Blair and I roll up to the gate just as priority boarding is finishing; we get seated and the plane takes off without incident.
Though our flight was booked through British Airways, the actual plane was operated by American Airlines. This was the first time I had flown American and I was impressed at how often the cabin crew came around to feed us. Over the course of the 9 hour flight we had two full meals, and two or three snacks. They also kept a steady supply of drinks coming and I could have even had beer or wine had I been so inclined.
At about 7:30 PM CET we landed at Dallas Fortworth airport and had the joy of clearing US customs. Afterwards we had the joy of re-checking our bags and then clearing US security, because, I guess they don’t consider international security good enough. After that hurdle we began our five hour countdown until the next flight which would take us back to Vancouver.
I became very familiar with both ends of DFW’s terminal 3 because I walked back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth a lot during that layover. Following what seemed like an eternity, boarding for our flight to Vancouver began and we were on our final leg home.
By 9:30PM Pacific time I found myself standing in front of a baggage carousal after having cleared Canadian immigration. It was the equivalent of about 6:30AM back in Amsterdam – some 24 hours since our journey had begun by trying to find an Uber. Naturally, baggage unloading was delayed due to an unspecified technical issue, so it was 10PM before we finally had bags in hand.
The rest of the trip wrapped up without incident – because we were long past the last ferry of the night, Blair and I crashed at Sean’s place which fortunately had more then enough bedrooms to accommodate us. I had what was probably the best sleep of the entire trip, since I was beat and was once again able to sleep in a normal bed. The next morning we caught a ferry back to the Island and the rest, as they say, is history.
Overall, this was the most chaotic, disorganized and problem-prone trip I had ever been on. It’s clear to me that the travel gods were interested in punishing us for trying to book way too much in way too short of a time, way to late in the game. And we never even managed to make it to the RIPE meeting! Decompressing from the whole experience I have a couple of take always:
- If someone else is booking travel for you, be proactive about it. Don’t assume everything is going to be booked, because there’s a high probability it won’t
- “Just in Time” works until it doesn’t. Our entire modern supply chain is based on just in time, and it fell flat on it’s face so it stands to reason our trip would do the same. Our entire plan relied on every step going perfectly to plan, and when one part failed (our delayed flight from Vancouver) it set in motion a series of events which messed up the rest of our trip.
- Booking an Airbnb out in rural Holland seemed like a great idea, however, Uber drivers really don’t want to drive out that far to pick you up. Also, make sure you actually know where your accommodations are in relation to your tasks – don’t assume Halfweg is a city name.
- London Heathrow is a massive fucking airport. Assume you need a minimum of 4 hours for connecting flights because if you’re checking bags and switching terminals you literally do
- Sometimes shit happens and you gotta roll with it!
Overall, I’m glad I went on the trip and I think there was some valuable experiences that came of it, but my next trip is definitely going to be better planned and more relaxed! At the end of the day, at least this made for a helluva blog post.