>On the road again
>Goin’ places that I’ve never been
>Seein’ things that I may never see again,
>And I can’t wait to get on the road again.

I probably won’t go to the [beer festival](/2007/05/14/strange-invitation/), but I got [new travel plans](http://www.geektravel.info/travel-plans/): I will likely go to China and Thailand for three weeks in August/September.

[Here you go](http://www.geektravel.info/v/detroit2007/). Enjoy.

It looks like I might go to Detroit again this year. I will let you all know – and, of course, I will blog about the trip on my [travel blog](http://www.geektravel.info).

I learned a pretty horrible lesson in Paris. I had just checked out of my hotel in [Paris](http://www.geektravel.info/2006/07/16/photos-from-paris/) and began my trip back home. I went down into the Châtelet subway station. I had to go down several levels, and when I arrived at one stair, a woman was just carrying her heavy luggage up, one step at a time.

Normally, I would have of course offered to help her, but I was still tired from returning to the hotel only about seven hours earlier, so I simply passed her by. I walked through Châtelet Les Halles and finally got to the RER station.

The RER entered not a minute later. And it was the non-stop Express RER to the airport, too. I arrived there to just catch the bus to Terminal 2. The Quick check in machine ate my ticket, and a guy had to print it out manually. I got seat 1a (had the entire row 1 for myself, too) – “boarding is in 10 minutes”, he said. “You should make that.”

I thanked him, and was on my way. I heard the boarding call about half-way to the gate. I didn’t have to queue for long. The flight left on time and only took about 40 minutes instead of the nominal 55 minutes. Arrived at gate A10 in Frankfurt, so I didn’t have to walk far. I bought something to drink at the airport supermarket, and when I descended to the subway station the subway just arrived. And at the main station, my tram also just arrived as I stepped onto the platform.

I’ve never had a return from Paris that was quicker or more smoothly.

Had I helped that woman, I’d have only caught the slow RER and not made it for the plane. I would have had to wait for the next one, and who knows how much luck I’d have had with the other connections.

What a horrible lesson; don’t help someone and your life is easier.

Good thing I do not believe in the [fundamental interconnectedness of all things](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently), and thus I realize it’s all just random events. It still is not an example you wish to give to others. I promise next time I’ll again help a lady even if it means I get home three hours later.

I’ll fly to [Paris](http://www.geektravel.info/category/destinations/europe/france/paris/) over the weekend. I’ll meet my good friend Gabrielle, who is in Paris for a training course for two weeks. I’ve known her for about seven years; she’s from Haiti so I never had the chance to meet her. Hope there’s no problems with my flights. And as always, if there’s anything blogworthy about my trip, you’ll be able to find out about it over at [Geek Travel](http://www.geektravel.info). I’ll not bring a notebook though – so no updates from the road.

You may have wondered about my silence both here and in email – well, wonder no longer. I just returned from Indonesia an hour or so ago. I’ve a lot of photos and quite a few postings for my [travel website](http://www.geektravel.info), many many other things I’ll have to blog about, a full email inbox and a million other things to do. I didn’t manage to get much Internet connectivity in Indonesia, unfortunately. I didn’t even keep up with world news – although I did hear when Germany got kicked out of the Worldcup (one of the “to blog” topics).

So anyway, stay tuned and check out Geektravel. You can even subscribe for notifications or to an RSS feed if you prefer.

And now I gotta go and do my food shopping.

I returned from Detroit about 8 hours ago. Fell asleep soon afterwards, sorry about the lack of timely updates. I did post some stuff over at [Geek Travel](http://www.geektravel.info). Didn’t take too many photos, but those that I have will come later.