It took me three flights and about 35 or so hours of travel to get to
the Adelaide meeting, but that didn't keep me away. Grow up, people -
it's one trip out of your life! Go with the flow and enjoy it ....
Cheers,
Andy
On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 5:55 AM, Iljitsch van Beijnum
<iljitsch(_at_)muada(_dot_)com> wrote:
On 25 mei 2009, at 1:15, Fred Baker wrote:
SBA-LAX-AMS-Den Hague, the last hop in both cases being by train instead
of an airplane.
("'s-Gravenhage", "Den Haag", "The Hague", "La Haye", "La Haya" but not "Den
Hague".)
Yes, but that's a 30 minute train ride (to Amsterdam is 15 from the
airport), running every 15 minutes (every hour after midnight) and close
enough to take a taxi if you are so inclined. However:
On 25 mei 2009, at 8:29, Henk Uijterwaal wrote:
I'm not quite sure how a 1:50 or 2:30 hour train ride translates
to 4 hours of extra travel time.
Easy: on the way back you need to build in extra time so if there is a
problem with the train you don't miss your flight. Don't forget that unlike
the major cities in the Netherlands Maastricht has a "single homed"
connection to the Dutch rail network and I wouldn't want to take a 200 km
taxi ride.
So suppose you're flying from SFO with Northwest, leaving on friday. Land at
10:30 on saturday. (Results based on doing all of this the same week this
year.) I don't think you'll make the 11:00 train, so it would have to be the
11:30 or 12:00 one, which gets you to the Maastricht train station at 14:04
or 14:34 with 6 minutes to change trains in Utrecht. So far so good.
However, on the way back your flight leaves at 11:10 which means you need to
be at the airport at 9:00 or so. The first train in the morning leaves at
6:26 and is at Schiphol at 8:59 but that leaves almost no room for error.
Dutch trains run on time 80% or so of the time and you need two, so 64%
chance they're both on time...
Maastricht is certainly not the worst IETF location ever, but sticking to
one of the four main cities in the Netherlands would have been a whole lot
better. Someone made the argument that the venues there are popular so you
need to book long in advance. Don't we now have the dates set for the next
five years??
And as I said before, I would be very interested to learn whether doing this
in june rather than july would have made a different location in the
Netherlands a more viable option.
Anyway, during those hours, you
will be sitting on a chair as comfortable as in most planes. I'd
think that most of us do what IETF'ers typically do: open their laptop
and start working.
The non-double decker intercity trains are pretty nice and if you use first
class then it's roomy and quiet. As long as you travel outside peak hours
you should at least be able to sit in second class but lots of people
talking and making phone calls.
In case you get stuck at Schiphol or a train station (or if you can log into
your mail within 2 minutes during stops):
http://www.nshispeed.nl/en/services-ns-business-card-international/kpn-hotspots
On 25 mei 2009, at 8:59, Patrik Fältström wrote:
It is 3 changes from FRA, on one of the routes, but no changes from AMS or
BRU.
Last time I checked planes don't land at the central station in Amsterdam or
Brussels...
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