Archive for June 19th, 2008

19 Jun 2008 A Prediction
Author: Gail |  Category: Blah Blah Blah, Europe  | 3 Comments

There are going to be a number of Germans hungover at work today.

Germany beat Portugal 3-2 in the quarter-final game in Basel, and I didn’t need to know the score to figure out who won — there was enough horn-blowing and singing on the streets of Hamburg this evening to proclaim the victory far and wide.

I’m not following Euro 2008 in the slightest, but Berit’s in a football pool at work and she’s been checking her stats all through Norway wherever I got a signal on the iPod Touch. A person would have to be living under a rock and completely deaf to avoid the European football mania, although to a somewhat lesser degree it’s like this in Toronto, too.

This morning we had a super-early start to the day to return the rental car and catch our bus from Oslo to Torp Airport in the south, flew to Bremen, took the airport bus to Hamburg (luckily nabbing the last three seats), picked up Berit’s car at her office underground, and practically the first thing I did when we got home was have a catch-up snooze. I slept all the way through the big football game, and since everyone went to bed I’ve been doing my laundry and writing email.

Iris & Torsten’s wedding takes place over the whole weekend on a converted farm outside of the city, so I’m taking advantage of some downtime and a signal before the Big Event starting Friday evening. Have I mentioned I’ll be staying in a “Hay Hotel”? Yeah, the pictures should be interesting.

I’m even going to do something girly and paint my toenails!

19 Jun 2008 Wi-fi On The Airport Bus?!?
Author: Gail |  Category: Unabashed Geekiness  | One Comment

I was surfing the internet at the bus station on the iPod Touch and thought I’d lose the signal, but to my utter amazement it stayed at full strength all the way out of the city centre. I couldn’t imagine I was daisy-chaining for so long (which never gives a full continuous signal, anyway), so I can only conclude that “Lavprisekspressen” is coming from a router on the bus itself??? How can this be??

In fact, I had no trouble getting internet access around Norway, even in fairly remote places. There are enough unlocked networks in the cities, too, that it isn’t a problem getting online and the network names are often quite amusing. I wish I’d charged my mobile phone yesterday to use the camera to capture some of the naming un-conventions, because my memory is getting woefully unreliable in my old age!! (More forgetful but apparently nerdier as I get older, too. Blogging from an airport bus today, what’s next — in-flight blogging?)

Next, I’ll see if the upload rate is decent enough to add a photo or two to this post…