London and LEGOLAND

This journey started just after following words:

  • Have a safe journey!
  • Oh, don’t worry everything will be ok!

Then real adventure began.

After one day of work after my bussiness trip to Lisbon, I packed my all family and we started our journey towards London. The goal was simple: visit my aunt in Newbury, visit Legoland in Windsor (our biggest dream – as all family are LEGO fans -some of us even from their childhood like me, who had only one 'saint’ box of LEGO blocks as a child) and maybe see 'Science Museum’ and 'Natural History Museum’ in London.

Well, we went to the Gdansk airport by car 1h before flight. It was 12.30 pm. As usual I had to be checked on security check (maybe this time I carry with me some drugs;)). However this time also my husband was suspect and his backpack was also checked -just for sure no drugs were omitted;)

Our kids quick found a playground near our gate and we started waiting for the plane to Frankfurt. We managed to check in for the next flight-and belive me if your’e on waiting list, you never know till the end if you will fly this desired flight. When aircraft didn’t come before boarding time, we discovered there was a huge storm in Frankfurt and all the planes were delayed. After waiting next hour, the strom came to Gdansk. Meanwhile we have eaten all our food, also McDondalds unhealthy snacks – and finally after one more 1h aircraft appeared.

We flew without any special adventures to Frankfurt. I had again a chance to view its impressive panorama. I love this city – for its interesting history, multicultural atmosphere, impressive museums (my favourite Arts Museum, Telecomunication Museum, Emmigrants Museum), shops of course and possibility to go everywhere by bike…There was a time I dreamed about comming back here.

From Frankfurt I called my aunt just to tell her that we would be late, because our aircarft was waiting on taxi way. It turned out that she was waiting for us already on London Heathrow.

Then we had fast run through the airport just to discover that we were at the wrong gate. Being on that wrong gate, which I didn’t notice, I discovered that I could argue in German in order to just to fly! My husband was really astonished – you have been learning German only for 2 years and can argue in that language! I told him that if I want to fly I could speak all languages I knew, even sign language;)

After founding the right gate, we finally landed in the right aircraft to London – then I said : „If you want that your short trip to London lasted all day – fly with Lufthansa!;)”

Finally we were in London at 23.00 and then we though there would be one more hour and we would be sleeping. We couldn’t have been more wrong – all the motorway stood in massive traffic jam. This was caused by strike on railways and all people were trying to come back home from work! We landed in Newbury and in our beds about 24.30.

Next day we drove to Barcklay by car and to Windsor-Legoland
by bus. This amusement park is amazing – all of us had a great time! We admired MiniLand with impressive little cities, managed to score all the rides, Fairy Tale Boat Ride as well as Waterpark, Land of Duplo, Scary House, amazing Hotels made from Lego, Yellow Submarine and astonishing water scooters. Then we visited City of LegoFriends and got a ride on breathtaking horse carousel and discovered lost land of Ninjago! Unfortunately it was already time to leave, so we took some photos, wave for PirateBay and went towards exit with obvious little stop in LegoShop.

Here is our short relation in pictures:

When time came for commig back, we found out that there was Royal Ascot. Not knowing exactly what it was we jumped into our bus and went towards Barckley. Of course traffic jam was tremendous – because it turned out, that it was the most important Horse Racing in all GB! Her majesty – English Queen honored this event! That’s why all English came there, dressed with taste, women with astounding hats and top heels and gentelmen in tailcoat with cylinders.

Finally we arrived into Barcklay and here we waited for my aunt, becuse this time she got stuck in traffic jam, because lorry fell over the road. Fortunatelly we met some Spanish family and our kids had a chance to play with them.

Next day we decided to go to London. Keeping fingers crossed that, trains were working normally. Indeed we were lucky, but I must admit that there were the most expensive train tickets as I ever bought;) I understand it was Saturday – but in Poland we have special deals for tourists for weekends and in England nothing seems to be like on main land;) On this island
everything is turned on its head,  cheap car fuel and expensive public transport!

In London we went straight to the Hyde Park, to have there picnic on the grass. Afterwards we went to 'Science Museum’, 'Natural History Museum’, finishing our short walk in grocery shop, buying icecreams and most important souvenirs from different countries – local sweets!

Here is short overview of what we saw:

Then we came back to Paddington railway station and there met a black girl, whose stepfather was Polish! She worked in a shop called 'Chocolate Hotel’ and offered us delicous chocolates. We couldn’t resist and bought 3 packs of them;)

Luckily arrived in Newbury without problems, we had delicous English supper with my aunt. Then I got an SMS:”Your tomorrows flight was cancelled. We are working on solution”. I thought – „Oh no, it is my favourite sentence in IT;), Let’s see whether they will offer us any other flight”. Unfortunately one hour later there was no sign of any other flight – but I had already tasted good rose wine. Maybe it was my mistake – as usually I don’t drink much alcohol. I rechecked again this SMS and found out that there was little inscription, that I should call servicedesk in Germany to rebook my flight. I did it so, however by some accident number which nice lady told me to call in order to rebook my flight didn’t work. Well, I thought – there’s one more chance – helpdesk in Poland! I called my colleague from work and asked him to rebook my flight. Then he asked this magic question: 'Give me your password to the system’ – I said try this one…He tried, but…Unfortunately it didn’t work, so I was left without flight for next day;( (and on Monday I had to be at work to restore data from that unlucky DB;))

Fortunately as everyone knows cheap airlines are good, beacuse they are good and cheap;) Finally we bought last minute tickets for Wizzair for all the family and had another day in England.

Last day we had a short walk in the neighborhood with finish line on playground and in 'PizzaHut’, so our kids were thrilled! I also managed to buy a new dress in TKMax, so everyone was happy;)

At 20:00 we arrived at the London Gatewick airport and everything seemed to be normal as on every other airport. We had some quick supper, went to some shops and then arrived to proper gate. Finally boarded the direct aircraft to Gdansk, we were happy that soon we would be flying. But it would be too easy – after couple of minutes we found out that our flight was delayed, because 5 of passangers didn’t arrive and their luggages have to be removed from the aircraft. After only 30 minutes of delay aircraft luckily landed in Gdansk at 2am. We were at home at 3 am and I get up at 7 am just to finish at work what I promised.

Then I discovered that after 4 hours of sleeping – you don’t recognize your colleagues from work but using your IT autopilot you can:

  • advise what MSSQL Server with which patches should be installed in MSAzure
  • advise what SQL command should be run in order to get Omnitracker recognize its DB
  • find the way on how to integrate check results from check_mk monitoring tool into your nagios installation (even if you do it for the first time)
  • retrieve set of KPI reports from OT
  • found original data from overwritten DB using report with postprocessing script in OT
  • have a meeting with your R&D team and found out that your project was chosen and you have 3 weeks to finish it;)

Well, yes – I would say „IT – it’s in my blood”;)

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