Wu Wei

Who decides what country you are in?

Eternal Remont has pointed here to the problem of Abkhazia on Facebook.  It seems Facebook recognises states not nations.  So groups are now developing for Abkhazians who consider they are not in Georgia.

It's also a big problem for Kosovo.  If you find yourself in Pristina,  on Googlemaps somehow you passed the Kosovo border and ended up in Serbia, which is illegal in the real world.   I tried to put my favourite bookshop (which is  in Pristina) on LibraryThing, but it wouldn't let me put Pristina in Kosovo, so I had to leave the state blank.

Dopplr isn't much better.  I haven't been to Pristina lately but this is what it offers me:

1. Priština, Serbia (also known as 'Pristina') Near Kosovo, Lipkovo, Novi Pazar Verify on a map.  and if you do verify on a map, it's not clear whether Pristina is in Kosovo either.  Very confusing.

It seems that some time ago, Podgorica moved from Serbia and Montenegro (as my old Outlook version insisted) and is now in just Montenegro, according to most software I use.

My iPod Touch thinks I am in Kiev. It doesn't allow me to be in Tbilisi, but I can be in Yerevan.

Just out of interest, who is it who decides which countries go in those drop down boxes.  I assume most people use boxes from a standard programme library.  But who decides when it is time to change the countries?

Where to stay in Podgorica

Well all the guidebooks advise you not to stay at all, so the prospect of 2 weeks work there was not something to get excited about.  I had spent one day there, a couple of years ago, just to tick the box.  Three of us wandered round at lunchtime to find somewhere to eat and managed to miss the main street with the restaurants on it.  This time I hoped I would do better.

My daily routine settled into:

• breakfast on the hotel terrace by the river
• taxi to the EU Delegation
• morning reading tender documents
• lunch with colleagues from the EU at a nice restaurant by the river
• afternoon reading tender documents
• walk home and collapse from heat
• sit on hotel terrace in evening and have drink
• listen to singer on terrace and watch fountain

There were slight variations, like I went to the town museum in a gap in the work; or I walked to find this famous street of restaurants (a few cafes serving the usual balkan food); or I had a beer instead of wine in the evening. I also sat in the terrace of Hotel Podgorica, an unreconstructed hotel from the early Yugoslav style.  I made the mistake of visiting the toilets, which in a state hardly seen outside the Ukrainian countryside.

The main problem was it was hot, I knew nobody, and the hotel was quite comfortable.  So I can recommend Hotel Ambasador, for the very friendly service and comfort.  I had an "apartment", a big L shaped room overlooking the river, with one part of the room set up as bedroom and the other as sitting room with desk.  The hotel internet didn't work, but I quickly piggybacked onto another wireless connection so I didn't bother to complain.

The room wasn't specially cheap, but I got a discount for staying (just under) two weeks, so it was reasonable. 

Luckily I was spared working at the weekend and went off by bus (a spectacular ride) to Kotor on the coast.  The regular thunderstorms spoiled the beach part, but I managed to find good food in the Old Town, which is a bigger version of Piran with well preserved walls and narrow streets.  So now i can say I have seen Montenegro's Wild Beauty.

At the end of the two weeks work, the Man from the Ministry got instructions to sabotage our work, as the result was not to his minister's liking.  So my two weeks were wasted, not to mention at least six months of EU work.  

Nevertheless after two weeks I could sing along to Montenegrin pop songs with the singer on the hotel terrace, as his routine did not vary at all from night to night.

The best cup of coffee in the Balkans ....

After complaining about the office coffee, a Bulgarian colleague working in the EU here in Podgorica announced:

    The best cup of coffee in the Balkans  is in.....

I held my breath wondering what he was going to say.  I know where I think the best cup of coffee is, but it's not always worthwhile to start an argument.

But it seemed that we both agreed that it was in Pristina.

Cue for reminiscing about coffee and Italian meals at Il Passatore, usually known as Antonella's (which figures top in my list of 5 best restaurants here).  The Montenegrans were rather surprised.

Even in the Kosovo Ministry, the coffee was better than most cafes you might think of as competition.

Moving on

Blogging is a bit chaotic at the moment.  Finally got home to get my teeth fixed, then off to Tbilisi, Montenegro, Cyprus, Tbilisi and Oxford again at the end of July for the packing up and moving to Vilnius. 

New Finnair advert

A new Finnair advert has appeared on BBC World.

The only other one I remember had a cute reindeer running through the snow and looking for its mother while a plane flew overhead.  It was cute but didn't tell you much about why you might want to use Finnair.  The best I could make of it was you were supposed to go home for Christmas, on Finnair.

From that point of view, the new one is even worse.  There are several versions, all featuring a young office worker in the boss's office, doing various imitations of a rather ruthless boss, apparently famous for taking over companies and sacking the workers.  The boss walks in unexpectedly on this performance, asking what the guy thinks he is doing.  The punchline (if adverts have such a thing) is "perhaps I should tell them I was travelling Finnair".  I think the implication is meant to be that with Finnair you get where you are going quicker (and hence unexpectedly and inconveniently early).

But from my point of view, travelling Finnair seems to imply that you will be in the company of grumpy old ruthless businessMEN.  Not much attraction in that. 

Turkish Airlines is doing much better, (still has a man), but at least it is interested in the customer's comfort, and is vaguely funny.

From my point of view the worst airline advert is Korean Airlines, which seems only a more modern version of the 70s and 80s adverts which had a beauty contest for air hostesses, along the lines of "fly me, fly X Airlines" where the sexual metaphor seemed to be the most important point of the advert.

Update

Sorry for lack of news.  Was travelling in Kiev and Vilnius, spent most of Sunday in Riga airport suffering from what appeared to be baby flu (well if you get pig flu from pigs, I got baby flu from the baby).  Surprisingly nobody appeared concerned, though I sniffed and sneezed over everybody.

It seems that the day after I left Kiev, at Borispol, passenger body temperatures were being scanned and a doctor was inspecting suspects, so perhaps I might not have got safely away.

Since getting back I have had no internet at home till now.

Here are some odd photos from the travelling:

In Vilnius they are selling a bank for 18 Lt, about 4 Euros.  (Actually, it's an advert for internet enabling you to get online banking etc).

And here is one of the sparrows that still live in Borispol airport.  I took photos of them in the roof of the main lounge while I was visiting in 2006 (see here), but they were too small to show up in the aircraft hangar style roof.  This time in the new part, they seem to prefer lurking under the seats, occasionally coming out for crumbs.  It's a very shiny floor reflecting the roof.

100,000 visitors

Thank you everyone who has been reading my blog.

I started it in January 2005, as something to do while l was living in Greece with a gap between projects.  Since then it has visited the UK, Lithuania, Slovenia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Cyprus and Georgia. 

Coming up soon: Montenegro and North Cyprus, more Lithuania, Georgia and Oxford, plus a possibility of Ukraine and St Lucia (a bit out of my usual region).

Government plans travel database

Can this on BBC News really be true (hat-tip to Random Reality here)?

The government is compiling a database to track and store the international travel records of millions of Britons.

Computerised records of all 250 million journeys made by individuals in and out of the UK each year will be kept for up to 10 years.

The government says the database is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism.

The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details of travellers.

I don't think I gave permission to the airlines to give my credit card details etc to the government.  If it wants my data then it will have to ask me for it first, I hope.

Would this be the same government that still doesn't have a database of our health records in the NHS?  Given its current level of success at implementing big databases I think we are safe for a bit longer. 

But it seems we should read the payment conditions set by airlines more carefully when we book online, and complain.

Travel through Riga

Copydude is busy singing the praises of Riga Bus Station here

Must have changed a lot since 1998.  Our family remember it as the place with the most disgusting toilets, when we took the bus from Vilnius to Tallinn.  We rushed back to the bus without looking at anything else. 

But then my kids have seen a whole lot more in the range of disgusting toilets since then, so perhaps a retrospective is due. Checking the memories with Bee, she says it was the first time she had a seen a squatter, or had to request the number of sheets of toilet paper required from a grumpy old lady. These days, this would hardly cause comment. Bucarest train station now wins her prize for the contrast between the filthy squatter, the grumpy lady and the immaculate plastic flowers. Our family places a high premium on plastic flowers, from an episode in our past, (perhaps this has not been blogged about yet).

Riga airport is another thing altogether.  Serves decent coffee when you arrive from Tbilisi on an overnight flight.  The transit time is sufficient for you to get it,  unlike for all the other flights, which are due the moment you set foot on land, so that you arrive to endless messages for: "x" recently arrived from Tbilisi, please go immediately to gate "y" where your flight is leaving.  On the other hand the officious security check as you come in, which seems to take a delight in being as slow as possible, so you might miss your flight, does not endear me to the Latvians.  Even Austrian Airlines does not take such delight in short transit times coupled with slow security checks. 

Winter has started ( with update)

Not having had much snow for a while, the sprinkling in Vilnius yesterday seemed quite pretty.  It seems that other cities had it worst, as I am now still in Vilnius airport waiting for a flight, when I was supposed to leave last night via Riga. 

No signs of our flight yet and earlier ones haven't left either.  Still the internet is free and I managed to send some emails.

Update We were amused or perhaps irritated by two crusty old Lithuanians who seemed to think the snow was the responsibility of the airline manager and wanted to see him to put him right. While we queued at 11pm to get our tickets changed for tomorrow, thinking we had missed our connection from Riga to Tbilisi, they were busy haranguing everyone in sight, and demanding the flight to Riga left NOW. We were betting that they would land in Riga just after the flight to Tbilisi had left. When we finally queued in Munich for our flight to Tbilisi a day later, we were amused to see they were there too. Munich is not a bad airport to wait in, but more delays in Vilnius meant there wasn't much time to go into town to see what there was to see, so we just hung around. I was introduced to the delights of the Bismarck sandwich, which apart from the name would probably transplant well into Lithuania, since it is herring. But then Lithuania doesn't do sandwiches or snacks for lunch.