London

Earlier this week I did my first consulting engagement in the UK. The customer I was meeting with was located on Canary Wharf. Because I hadn't been into the city on my own yet I got a really early start and left my house at 0630. A taxi picked me up and dropped me at the train station. I caught the 0708 train into the city (£53!!) and got to Waterloo Station on time.

I'd been to the station before so I kind of knew how to get down to the Jubilee line and on to Canary Wharf. The big difference was that I'd never ridden the tube during rush hour. Holy cow it was crowded. I've never been touched by so many people at the same time. But I finally got to my destination (where apparently everyone was going anyway) and headed above ground.

To divert a little, I want to rave about the Oyster Card. In my experience every major city has a stored value card for their mass transit, but I've never run into one as nice as an Oyster. First the card itself is much heaver and very permanent. You'd expect to have your card for a number of years before replacing it (there's even a deposit to discourage disposal). In New York or Chicago they have these thin paper cards that you could carry around, but really you pitch them any time they get empty. The result is piles and piles of discarded cards near the stations. You don't see that in the tube. Second is the technology. In NY and Chicago, the cards are thin and you swipe them at the turnstiles. The Oyster on the other hand is RFID which means that I just keep it in my wallet and put my wallet on the sensor. As long as the card is within about a centimeter, I'm fine. Very cool and it means that I don't have to go digging out my card all the time, it's just the same motion to remove my wallet as if I was paying for something.

But back to the engagement. The site was nice and I found the co-worker I was supposed to meet just fine on the first try. At the end of the day, we went to meet some other co-workers who happened to be in the city (I was impressed how many separate clients we were meeting as a company during one day) and so we took the DLR to the end of the line at Bank Station. Another side note about this station is that it sits 42 meters below ground. It seemed like we rode escalators up forever.

At this point we were about 20 minutes walk south of where we were meeting everyone so I got a bit of a walking tour of the city. We passed things like St Mary-le-Bow (which means that I was in hearing distance of my boss' birthplace) and St Paul's.

After dinner and drinks I caught a cab back to Waterloo and had one of those moments. I looked up at the departures board (after a few drinks mind you) and couldn't see any trains headed back to Southampton. I was in the process of calling Sally for help (at 2100 I'm sure she wouldn't have been amused) when the departure boards changed and I was saved. I ended up getting into Southampton around 2230 and walked over to the airport to catch a cab.

Now, the company has an account with a cab company, so you go to a dispatching desk and pay there instead of to the driver. This is a little strange at the best of times, but when I mentioned to the dispatcher that I was with SpringSource he immediately knew where I was heading (which is odd because the housing estate is so new). It turns out that he worked overnights and he had actually dispatched my cab at 0630 that morning! I'd been in London so long he was back on duty.

I eventually made it home and can't wait to go back to London.