Departure from Denmark

Finally the day of departure has come! It was time to harvest the fruits of our fundraising. We met at Tues place 11:30; a cold and windy friday november morning looking forward to feel the tropical weather on the other side of the planet, although a 19 hour long journey was ahead of us.

Tues girlfriend drove us to the Airport where we arrived ahead of schedule and was able to check in, in an almost empty airport. We decided to play some table soccer as one suddenly realized he had forgotten his purse (no names mentioned…) which gave the schedule a little twist of excitement. Despite of that we did catch the plane and landed safely in Copenhagen, where we were in a bit of a rush to get the next airplane to Doha, since we had to run from terminal 1 to 2 in 40 minutes. The flight to Doha was nice, with good service and a fine meal although some of the flight time was also spent making some work and sleeping. In Doha we recharged the computers and worked some more on our transcriptions. From Doha to Manila the boing 777-300ER (a very big airplane) smoothly carried us to Manila Airport. We tried to take a picture of the plane but the Qatar officer didn’t share the passion of photography…

In Manila we were struck by the warmth and the high humidity which instantly made us sweat. The driver from the Picasso hotel was waiting to pick us up and drove us safely through the, apparently, chaotic and anarchistic traffic. We saw the contrasts between Makati city which is the business district with impressive skyscrapers rising everywhere and the poor ghettoes where the houses is made of iron sheets.

The hotel is very nice. We got two studio rooms, which matched and maybe even exceeded our expectations, with wifi, balcony, good toilets, nice beds and a minibar. At the hotel we met our Danish contact Finn Lund Poulsen, who is general manager at Vestas, Manila, whom we, after a quick check in and a bath, went to a local place to get a beer and a brief introduction to Manila.