The week before Christmas I had to visit London again to meet up with some people from Apple. For those of you in London know what flying to London meant that week. Fog all over the place but little did I know when I left for the airport.

We were scheduled to fly at 13:50 hr from Amsterdam. When I arrived at Schiphol around noon I was told that my flight was cancelled but the kind lady suggested to book us on the 10:50 flight cause it was delayed and scheduled to depart around 15:00 hr at that time. But that changed quickly so without time to finish coffee we rushed to the gate. So we went on that plane together with around 200 upset people, they had waited for 4 hours. From our perspecive: we won 20 minutes cause the plane took off around 13:30 hr.

The return trip was somewhat different but I was lucky again. The meeting was very interesting and well we lost a sense of time. At 17:00 hr someone entered the meeting to inform us about our return flight and I said well, it is scheduled at 19:00 hr. From then on it was quite hectic I might say.

We couldn't take a cab because that wouldn't bring us to Heathrow on time. So we went by tube and the Heathrow Express. At 18:55 hr we still had to go through security and we arrived at the gate at 19:10 where we just entered into the line for boarding.

The flight went well and I sat home on the couch at 22:30 hr to watch the  news stating that because of the fog Heathrow was a mess with a lot of stranded passengers.

I mention all this because this experience remembered me about my first business trip abroad. Weeks of carefull preparation, hours of waiting because I went to the airport too early, packed with stuff I never took out of my suitcase.

But I realise that I now have drifted to the other end of the scale and have promised myself a little more time around departure on the next trip.