Last Thursday I left Frankfurt to visit someone in Brussels. That worked out well, I got a nice seat on the plane and there was no problem at all. Brussels is pretty nice too, as you can see from [the pictures I made](/v/brussels2005/).

4647So on Monday morning I left Brussels as planned. Had to stand in line at the Brussels central station a while because the guys in front of me bought season’s tickets, and that seems to be a major undertaking (why should the Belgian train company be any better than any of their counterparts in other European countries). Not that I now complain – looking for the time of the next train to the airport, I met a really nice Indonesian lady from the UK. Even if the train ride to the airport is only about half an hour, time flies when you have a friendly person to talk to.

Anyway, by the time we departed the central station, snow had set in. The British lady and I parted ways upon arrival, and I checked in and went through the security check. No problems so far – until I arrived at my gate. It had changed. And then the plane was announced to be 30 minutes late. And the gate changed again… By now, the snowfall was quite heavy. When the plane finally arrived (at this new gate) it turned out that the machine was half-empty. The captain announced that they had changed the plane for a bigger one, anticipating a large number of passengers. Which, I presume, got stuck somewhere in the snow chaos…

And snow chaos it was indeed. We had to wait.

And wait.

And wait….

4656Our plane stood there in the snow for about two hours. As it turns out, the Brussels airport had only one – repeat, *ONE* – de-icing truck in operation for the whole airport. Alright, that kind of explains it.

And to make the mess complete, when we finally did arrive in Frankfurt, we were parked on the airfield itself, and had to get to the terminal in buses. The passengers moaned in unison when the crew told us this, but I didn’t really mind. The outfield parking positions are still better than A40 or some of the other far gates. You’re faster with the bus than you are walking.

## Frankfurt Intermezzo ##

Upon my arrival in Frankfurt I hurried out of the airport, took the subway home, and picked up some tickets to Hamburg as well as my left-over 80 GB hard drives. Tried to also pick up the coat I am getting fixed, but it wasn’t done yet. Well, no matter. Back to the airport!

Only, the tram was 11 minutes late – leaving me standing in the cold. When it finally arrived, some moron kid had to block the door for his moron friends. Tram missed all traffic lights thereafter, causing me to miss the next subway too. I say moron kids, because they got out the next tram station. How urgent for them to catch this tram and cause a delay for everybody else! Hell, when I was their age I would have simply _walked_ those 500 meters.

Missing the subway meant another 15 minutes delay. And, of course, the next subway was late as well.

4659I checked in for the next flight. By now it was clear I would not arrive on time to go to n@work. Called Jan and asked him to please pick up the server, then called n@work to tell them to please give Jan the server. No problems there, and I went to the security check. To my amazement they didn’t find anything unusual in the fact that I carried two hard drives in my back.

A still greater surprise awaited me when I wanted to enter the “A” wing of the airport. I found the wing to be closed by a huge fire door, with smaller doors open to the left and right to grant people passage. Turns out there had been a fire alarm earlier. All the windows were open – the temperature was quite unpleasant. And while everybody assured us that the plane would not be late, it was quite interesting to see all the airport staff mill about trying to bring order into the chaos – and get the windows closed. Too bad I had not arrived earlier – I’d have enjoyed watching a fire “drill”…

By this time, the snow from Brussels had caught up with me. After boarding was complete, we had to be de-iced – and left for Hamburg with about 30 minutes delay.

## In-Flight Meals ##

4662″Mr Jeppe?” The female flight-attendant asked me after take-off. I was just relaxing.

“Yes?” I acknowledged my existence.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but, did they tell you yet?”

I looked at her, clueless. “No, tell me what?”

“Well, I am really sorry, but you checked in so shortly before take-off, we did not load enough meals.” She really sounded as if she was very sorry.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I replied. “It’s only a short flight.”

“I’m really sorry,” she repeated. “If you would like, I’ll see what else we have.”

“No, please,” I told her. “Don’t make a hassle, I won’t starve. It’s really okay.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll check.”

About ten minutes later she returned to me, a little tray in her hands. Cheese, bread, some fruit, and so on. She beamed at me.

“One of the other passengers didn’t want her meal, so I thought you might like it.”

I looked at her, hesitating barely a moment. She had made such an effort, how could I say no?

“Thank you,” I told her. “That’s really very kind of you.”

I have a girlfriend. I didn’t ask her telephone number. But I really appreciated this. I guess I must have looked stressed and hungry.

## Server Fixing ##

I arrived at Jan’s place at about 7:00 pm, and we promptly set out with our task. To make it short, we did not find any evidence that there had been a break-in – but some evidence that the hardware was simply giving up. Which really is okay, considering this is a desktop system that’s about 5 years old and which has been runging 24/7. We put a new Hard drive in, exchanged the mainboard, CPU and fans, and began to completely [set up a new system from scratch](http://blog.krutisch.de/archives/154-Downtime!.html). Better safe than sorry. In the morning we had set up all the “basics” – including some major software upgrades – and brought the server back to n@work, via taxi. Will have to think of a better solution for the long run, but for now it should suffice. The rest of Tuesday was spent sleeping, only interrupted by going out for dinner with my mother and sister.

## Finally Home ##

I finally returned to Frankfurt today, Thursday, evening. Had to wait for a few planes because they were all overbooked, but it was a pleasant flight. Unfortunately my vacation is now almost over… I really didn’t expect it to end this way.