ESWC Day 1

Here is how it went: We landed at terminal three, and quickly found thatairport busses went to the center of Paris,perfect! - or so we thought. The nice lady at the information booth told ussimply to take the airport shuttle to “the second stop”. Unaware of how Frenchpeople abuse the English language we jumped on the shuttle, and skipped a stop,and got off at the 2^nd. However, we would soon realize that it wasnot the right place, there was nothing but annoying French people, and nobusses. Smart as we are, we figured we simply had to go to the next stop withthe shuttle, 5 minutes later we were at “Terminal 2 D” again looking for ourbus with no luck. Already at this point much complaining was heard from Spand,this would turn out to be only the start. Anyways, since the 3^rdstop wasn’t it either, it had to be the 4^thstop, right? So, another5 minutes with the shuttle, and we were at some train station that surelydidn’t have any busses. Annoyed with everything, and sweating like pigs, wedecided that the nice lady at terminal 3, where we started, would simply haveto explain us how this thing worked. Another 15 minutes on the shuttle and wewere back exactly where we had landed, 1½ hours ago. We then went to see thelady, luckily she didn’t seem to remember us, as we slightly embarrassed askedwhat terminal the busses were leaving from, she then responded "Terminal 2A, 2ndstop" - No LADY Terminal 2A was the FIRST stop, not the second damn it.Anyways, 5 minutes on the shuttle we were at Terminal A, again unable to findthe bus, but this time we wouldn’t give up, so after a quick trip around thecorner, we finally found the bus stop, only to realize that the bus had justleft - great. But finally some luck, a McDonalds was only 70 meters away, so wehad a good excuse for eating our first meal of the day.

After French fries with too little salt, and a rather boring burger, wewere on our way in the long lost airport bus headed for Gare De Lyon. But withthe luck we were having, we had no been wandering around the stupid airport forso long that it had become rush hour, so the 20km trip to the center of towntook 40 minutes, but besides that went relatively well. Finally at Gare De Lyonwe still had to find our hotel, and annoyed with stupid airport we decided tojust take a taxi to the hotel, and after a 20 minutes wait we got in a taxi,finally on our way to somewhere to rest. 5 minutes after, and 10 euros poorerwe were at our hotel, so we quickly dumped our bags, and decided to go checkout the event location, knowing it was not open, but we just wanted a quickglance. Then our luck caught up with us again. What should have been a 15 minuteswalk became a 40 minute detour, since the French city planners didn’t see itfit to do the 200 meters of sidewalk we needed to get from our hotel, and tothe park. But hey, that sure shouldn’t stop us now, so walking 5 minutes in thewrong direction, crossing the Seinewe werefinally atleast heading the right way, after a 20 minute walk we then cut backover the Seine, and got into the park, whereafter it was smooth walking all the way to the “Palaise Omnisports De Bercy”.

The location looked pretty impressive, but kinda empty, but since we area day early, I guess no one is to blame, other than us. After grapping anexpensive bit to eat on the restaurant next to the event we decided to go backhome to the hotel. This time there should be no detours, or so we thought, whatwe didn’t know was that our little shortcut was an event bigger detour than theone we had taken on our way there, resulting in a 40 minute walk - and a lot ofwhining - just to get back home, to write this diary on our wonderful day.

So to sum up, French ladies in information booths in the airport, shouldbe put out of their misery. The French cityplanners should be dragged out backand shot. And my very soar feet will make for angry diaries from now on I amafraid. This event better be worth it.

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