Citizen M

I stay in a lot of hotels around the world and they are all, more or less, variations of the same theme. This Saturday night I found myself staying at Amsterdam Airport for the night. My local office had booked me into the “Citizen M” hotel adjacent to the terminal. This hotel chain is different from all the rest and I suspect aiming at a certain, young, demographic. I have to say overall I found the experience refreshing. All the rooms are double rooms and the bed is the full width of the room and square, it’s huge. There is no bathroom the shower and toilet are in the same room, it’s no problem when you are travelling on your own but it might not work if you are travelling with your partner. There is free internet and all the films are free, breakfast is in a bag and EUR10. There are limited facilities for business i.e. a very small desk!!

I don’t know if it would work for more than one night but the one night was good

In flight magazines

I usually spend a couple of minutes looking at the in-flight magazine when I am travelling. Since the economic downturn the advertising in these publications has subtly, and in some cases not so subtly, changed. It used to be all about wealth management, boats & other status symbols, houses and regional development agencies. With the government cuts the regional development agencies have disappeared and the boats and wealth management have largely gone as well. The BA High Life magazine this month there was a full page advert for a pawn Brokers !!!

We used a Danish Airline to move the tour group from Rotterdam to Zurich; well it’s an international business! The duty free catalogue on board was advertising Skippers Pipes. In the UK selling these sorts of sweets is banned as it could be seen as glamorising smoking and encourages children to take up the habit. Interestingly Denmark has banned the sale of Marmite because it has added vitamins. I am not sure what sort of conclusion to draw from these two facts.

Two sides of the same coin

I have been back out on the road this week with the music group that I was in South Africa with. This time they are touring Europe.

The first move was from Brussels to Berlin. Being based in London I was able to do this move in a single day. I was up at 03:00 and the taxi picked me up at 03:30. The bus took me to Heathrow at 0400 getting there at 05:30. It was then to the gate for the 06:50 Brussels Airlines flight to Brussels arriving at 08:30. A run through of the arrangements and then it was time for a coffee. The baggage arrived at 11:30 and the passengers at 13:00 the flight to Berlin left at 14:00 arriving at 15:00. I was all clear by 16:00 and had to get across town to Schoenefeld airport for my flight back to London that left at 21:25. The airport was crowded with weekend travellers going home and the flight was delayed by an hour and packed full. I got back home at 00:30, 21hours after leaving the house.

The second move was from Berlin to Rotterdam, Berlin was just a little two far to the east of London to make this work in a single day. As a result I took a morning flight to Berlin and the train across town to the hotel and then went up to Tegal airport to go through the arrangements before picking up the boarding cards that I had promised to drop off to the group. I spent the afternoon looking at Berlin, one of my favourite cities. I took the S Bahn to the Brandenberg Gate where the sence of history takes your breath away. Later on I went to the Berlin O2 Area using my back stage pass to get in and drop the boarding cards off. They were good enough to feed me with some very nice food before I returned to my hotel for the night.

Some days are easier than others.