a short sunday today: in the afternoon i need to catch the 15:50 flight from zurich to nice for almost a week of demo duty at the 3gsm world congress in cannes. after church we have a quick lunch and then both leave for the train to zurich: i continue to the airport, dorothee has an hour to kill before her train to stuttgart leaves.

i’m flying with my favourite airline, swiss, today…the check-in machine, although it does give me a ticket, does not like the idea of me checking luggage and, consequently, does not even offer that option to me. the swiss person (who might have been swiss, but then again might not have been but was certainly a swiss employee) at the e-check-in counter just asks whether it was the first machine in the row — which i confirm — and then nods, sighs, and explains that that machine doesn’t like luggage…as my flight to nice leaves from the “new” midfield terminal, i need to go via terminal b, through terminal b border control, then onwards through terminal b, take a right halfway through it, by which time i’m on the connecting walkway between terminal a & b, then halfway through that walkway there’s an exit with escalators and a lift going under ground which i’m directed to take…to arrive on a kind of intermediate level (already under ground) which leads via escalators to a kind of railway station…it actually is the skytrain station.

— which i find a bit strange: a skytrain station under ground? let’s hope the swiss pilots know the difference between up and down…

after a short ride on the underground skytrain i arrive at the midfield terminal where again it’s a bit walking exercise before i finally arrive at the gate — my colleague mike summarises the up and downs, left and rights of getting there quite pointedly: “i assume they had a look at heathrow airport and thought that the long and winding walkways were a terrific idea and that they wanted to have something just like that in zurich.” we agreed that they had done a splendid job of it!

the flight to nice is crammed full. nice airport likewise and the french border control is very diligent and checks each and every passport — it takes 30min to get through. after a bit of searching for the place that is supposed to sell taxi vouchers for the taxi ride to cannes (there’s no such thing, contrary to the “instructions”) we just take a cab and negotiate a rate in advance.

the “hotel” in cannes la bocca turns out to be a holiday apartment complex past its prime. what i at first consider to be the kid’s bedroom because of the small bed turns out to be the real bed room for me: unfortunately, my feet extend past the end of the bed for a good 30-40cm — and almost touch the opposite wall of the room. good grief. that’ll be really relaxing after a 10.5h of demo duty each day for the next four days.

after a greasy pizza i’m off to bed — in the living room where i’ve managed to convert one of the couches into a rather reluctant double bed; reluctant, because the two mattresses making up the double bed are in now way connected to one another and have the tendency to go for a walk in the middle of the night, leaving me not dangling in the air but rather sliding to the floor.

the cote d’azure really is fun…