- Friday, Aug 10th
6.48h - Lisbon, Portugal | After a crazy and terribly long day I'm finally back 'home', in Portugal that is. The last day of the WWDC had some nice remaining sessions, and ended already at lunch time this year. We decided to meet up at 1pm outside the Moscone center with the Dutch WWDC participants. While waiting outside with Phil, Joris and Redmar we saw some of the usual famous suspects draw by, and some more peculiar people as demonstrated by photos below. Bram Elderman, Mahin Ramkisor, Axel Roest, and Patrick Machielse quickly joined the group and we went for a delicious lunch in a French restaurant near the Apple store. - After lunch it was time to prepare for the return trip home. Phil and I went to Macys to buy one of these locks that the security at airports can open (wow, these stores are HUGE!). I prepared my bags in Phil's hotel room (in the well known Pickwick hotel), and manage to stuff all my gear in my bag. Yesterday I became aware already of what was going on at the airports in Europe and the US. Luckily my flight still seemed to go, but I was told already about the restrictions on cabin luggage. I had sent the cube and a backup of my laptop's harddrive home by Fedex. And I packed my PowerBook carefully in my main bag, leaving nothing else than money and passport as hand luggage.At the airport this indeed proved to be a wise decision. Already a big queue had accumulated before the checkin desks and people from British Airways were instructing all passengers to do what I had already done. In addition I made use of a service where you could wrap your bag in plastic, something that would lower the risk of my bag opening upon sustained damage (like it had done on the way to San Francisco), and that would make it less attractive to open my bag and steal the valuables inside. Unfortunately, that was when the long wait began.
- The displays already reported a significant delay for flight BA286, the planned 18.55 time of takeoff had slipped back to 23.30, a 4 and a half hour delay. As a result it was already clear that I would miss my connection to Lisboa the next day, and I was not the only one. The checkin took two and a half hours, as everyone had to be rebooked to other connecting flights. Once I reached the counters, it turned out the options were very limited. The next flight to Lisbon was on Sunday, and already fully booked. Porto gave the identical story. Amsterdam would be an option, but then I had to stay the night in London, which meant sleeping on the airport as in a range of 25 miles of London there were no hotels available anymore. The only option remaining was Madrid, and I would just have to see how I would get to Lisbon from there. I got one of the last two remaining seats on that flight, which lucky me meant a business class seat.
- With all my stuff already checked in I tried to contact Tânia through some crappy internet phone to send here an email, calling was not really an option anymore as by now it was 3 in the night in Portugal. I wrote her the new schedule, hoping see could find out how to get back to Lisbon tomorrow. After that it was waiting for the flight to go. I got a discount coupon for a Pizza and decided to buy the Da Vinci code pocket edition to kill the time. Unfortunately I was forced to toss the book away after reading only one third when we entered the plane, nothing was allowed on board except for my wallet and passport. The plane was only filled half, I guess many people missed or cancelled the flight. I was however so tired from the passed week that I fell asleep almost immediately, only waking up 7 hours later, one hour before landing.
- Compared to Heathrow, San Francisco was not so bad actually. The queues here were even much longer, and getting on board the flight to Madrid required three security checks and a long wait. Fortunately I met an american couple on their way to Athens (she was a volleyball player who had been offered a contract at a Greek professional club, he a American history teacher who will try to get a teaching job in Greece, both my age) and while chatting the time went fast. Finally in the plane to Madrid it became clear what a mess it was. The plane should be completely full, yet only contained like 40 people, one hundred others had not made it from connecting flights. Worse, the suitcases of all these people were already on board and now had to be removed again, which took another hour.
- There was also good news however, Tânia's parents would pick me up from the airport, they were so kind to drive no less than 5 hours from Manteigas in the North of Portugal to Madrid! Unfortunately I would have to let them wait even longer, my main bag had arrived (thank god, it still contained my PowerBook, mobile phone etc) but not the poster container. I clearly was not the only one missing items, in front of me were about 20 others who reported missing suitcases and bags. I also saw at least a dozen suitcases at Madrid with missing owners, so you can imagine the mess. Finally at 2am Madrid time I met Tânia's parents in the arrival hall, after which we still had to drive 5 hours back to Manteigas where we arrived at 7am.
- This year's WWDC was one to remember! Of course because of the trouble with suitcases, missed flights, etc. But fortunately most of all because of all the exciting moments at the WWDC itself, the BioCocoa talk, the poster session, the new stuff in Leopard, the great fun with the other participants, and of course, winning the Apple Design Award. Awesome! Now let's hope our cube arrives safely soon...
Friday