Sleeper Train to Warsaw

Friday 11/12.
I was very excited and a little nervous to be taking the 15 hour overnight train from Amsterdam to Warsaw to see my parents for the weekend. It turned out to be on the better decisions of the trip and a great experience.
I made my way out of the hotel close to 4 to head to Amsterdam Central station for my 7:00 train. It is really easy to get around in Europe, they have efficient, cheap, and frequent buses to train stations, and then you can take the train anywhere. I wish we had that kind of travel infrastructure here in the US. I hopped on the 300 express bus to Haarlem Station for 2 Euros and then bought a one way ticket into Amsterdam for less than 5.
I arrived in Amsterdam Central before 5, which was way to earlier and gave me too much time to freak out over little things...
I found my platform but my train wasn't listed. There was a big crowed so I figured I was in the right place. I overheard people saying that this was the train to Copenhagen, which really got my thinking that I was in the wrong place. Finally, about 20 minutes before the train arrived they put up the information.
It turns out that the sleeper train goes to a number of different places depending on which cabin you get in. I thought that was really interesting. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, you would end up in Copenhagen. Luckily, I found the Warsaw train but was confused when I found 3 seats in my cabin instead of 2 beds. The conductor, who didn't speak English, then came in and folded the seats down and the beds popped out of the wall. It was a pretty neat set up. Then he took ticket AND return ticket for overnight keeping, which really freaked me out. I usually don't worry about stuff like this. There was also no dining car, which I found really strange on such a long journey!
I was all alone in my cabin for 3-4 hours until the trained pulled into Stuttgart close to midnight. There, a German dentist became my bunk mate, but we held off on the conversation until the morning.
Sleeping on the train was a breeze. I got about 10 hours and it was really nice to recharge after working two countries. I woke up close to 8 and eventually started chatting with the man who got on last night.
There was a language barrier, but we managed to talk in broken English for a few hours. We talked about all sorts of weird things: how China will be the next super power, pre WWI Europe, and a brief history of Poland and the kings on their currency. He was a fascinating guy. He also insisted that I eat at the U Iducharzy restaurant in the Hotel Europejski as he gave me a history about that as well.
The conductor came in when we were about 2 hours from Warsaw with my return ticket and complimentary chocolate filled croissants. I found it strange that I wasn't that hungry, but hadn't eaten in close to 15 or 16 hours.
The only downside to the whole experience was that it was a night train and I didn't get a chance to see the German country side as we rolled through. It was light enough by the time we crossed into Poland to see though. The countryside is very quaint, dotted with brightly colored houses amid hills and dead woods.
We arrived in Warsaw about an hour later than scheduled, but I was completely refreshed and ready to cram as many sights as possible into my brief stay (the Graham family way!). I am very glad I opted for the train instead of the much faster flight.

Netherlands Day 1-3

Wed-Friday 11/10-12
I'm lumping most of the days together because I really didn't get a chance to do much until the weekend.
The team caught a late flight out of Norway and arrived in the Netherlands late to find that the rest of the team that had arrived earlier had done a lot of the setup work. Still, it was well past midnight by the time we had everything good to go for the start of the next day.
I had something called "traditional Dutch meat" for dinner. I couldn't put my finger on what kind or cut of meat it was, but it was really tasty. I topped off dinner with a 4 chocolate dessert dish featuring chocolate mousse, a chocolate covered cream puff, chocolate ice cream, and a brownie. It was the start of eating a ton of chocolate on this trip. I had a Belgian beer named Palm as well that was pretty good.
I am amazed at the lack of clocks so far. Both hotel rooms didn't have one, not even an alarm clock, and there was only 1 that I saw in the entire Oslo hotel. Very strange. The hotel in Haarlem, about a 20 min train ride from Amsterdam, appears to only have 1 clock as well.
Dinner the second night with the HP Dutch team was really fun. It took a little longer to get there because of some road work and one way roads, and we drove through the same intersection 3 or 4 times trying to find the way, but once we parked we got a chance to wander the streets of Haarlem, which is architecturally very close to Amsterdam.
Dinner was a 3 course fixed menu called the Chef's Table. For starters, I had an appetizer platter of tuna tartar, scallops on a bed a beets, and shrimp on a mixture of mashed potatoes and carrots. The main course was a venison steak on spouts and mashed potatoes. They must really like potatoes here...Dessert was chocolate mousse with a touch of coffee this time (I prefer it without), a piece of cake I wasn't too fond of that I ended up trading for more mousse, and some homemade ice cream. Pretty good meal, but I liked the traditional dutch meat the best.
After dinner we went back to the hotel and a few of us had drinks at the bar. I was introduced to jenever, which sounds like "your neighbor". It tasted a lot like akvavit but was easier to drink and had less of an alcohol content. I made a mental note to look for it in the Duty Free later.
The event itself was quite the contrast to the Norway one. In Norway, nobody will interrupt you even if you stop a presentation to ask questions, it's just the way the culture is. They will wait for you to finish and then approach you one on one rather than stop your flow and ask a question in the middle. The Dutch, on the other hand, are very interactive.

Oslo Days 2&3

Im lumping the last two days in Oslo together because they were mainly event focused and I did not have any time to get out and explore the city.
11/9 and 11/10
The event itself went rather well, with just a few technical snags here and there.
The hotel food was excellent for being hotel food. Usually we are stuck with terrible sandwiches and soggy potato chips, but this time we were treated to a buffet of an assortment of sausages and salami, including mutton, salmon, and lamb chops. I skipped the herring though and could not find any reindeer. I was unimpressed with the end of event dinner.
The airport is a breeze to navigated, and designed in a cool way. Security went by in a snap. I noticed some akvavit in the Duty Free, and made a mental note to look for it in Sweden at the end of the two week trip. The flight to Amsterdam was on KLM, and I was not impressed. The food was especially terrible, even for airlines, with a half mayo/cheese sandwich and half chicken curry/egg salad sandwich packaged together.

Not really much to say about Oslo. It snowed, the hotel food was good, and the brief bit of the city I saw was fun. I would like to come back sometime in the Summer and explore some more.

Oslo Day 1

Day 1 Monday 11/8
Today marks the first day of an Oslo-Amsterdam-Stockholm two week customer event with a personal 15 hour train trip to Warsaw in between Amsterdam and Stockholm.
The flight was the best international flight I've ever been on, and it was probably better than some domestic ones. We had about an hour delay out of Houston, but only landed a half hour behind schedule in Amsterdam. I was fortunate enough to have the window seat next to an empty one, so I had the full row to stretch out in. The chicken and rice meal was above average as well! I slept for about 6 hours of the 9 hour flight, and another 1.5 of the 2 hour flight from Amsterdam to Oslo. I was fully rested and ready to go! We landed in Norway and cleared baggage at before 2PM, and then found the Norway HP guys to take us to the hotel.
After having an early dinner/late lunch at the hotel restaurant, we hitched a ride back to the airport to pick up the last few people coming in on another flight and take a train from the airport into downtown Oslo.
We were only there for a few hours, but I found a stein to match my Danish one and picked up a Christmas gift or two. The Karl Johans pedestrian street we wandered was a lot like Kongingsgaard (I know I butchered that one) from Copenhagen, but in my opinion not as good. After a brief separation and aimless wandering, we all managed to meet back at the train station and head back to the outskirts to do final event preparation. No port-a-potties were found. :(
This is the second time I've worked an event in a hotel, the first had a lot of behind the scenes issues but the Norwegian staff here seems incredibly helpful. I have high hopes! Speaking of the hotel, the architecture is just neat. Very sleek and clean looking, and the furniture is so light! I wish all furniture was Scandinavian, it would make last minute room set up scrambling so much easier. My room has two single beds and weird lights, but it has a certain amount of charm to it. It's also the first hotel room I've ever been in that does not have a pen in it.
And what trip wouldn't be complete without some idiotic screw up by yours truly. This time I managed to pack the 220V power cord for my laptop so it will work with the plugs here, but forgot to actually pack the power brick that connects the cord to the PC. Sigh. Luckily I'll have a spare when we get to Amsterdam on Wednesday.