Day 2 – Boarding the Bus

After having a nice stroll around the city of Amsterdam on Saturday, and then a relaxing boat ride through the famous canals on Sunday, I boarded “The Bus” for the very first time!

At approximately 830p on Sunday evening, eight members of “The Crew” (not the motley kind) left the Golden Tulip Hotel in Amsterdam for a short bus ride to Utrecht.  During my brief bus test flight, I got a chance to get to know our two contest winners: Bob Simms and Christopher Maneu.  The three of us, chillin’ in one of the two upstairs lounges were regaled with stories of previous famous bus tenants by one of the two drivers (both of whom are named David – talk about HA/DR for drivers!).

After about 30 minutes or so, Ken Rosen, Stephen  Rose, and I (clearly lacking a flowery surname) were dropped off at one hotel, so we can support a gig at Compu’Train-BVO (one of two events happening simultaneously on Monday morning).  The rest of the bus gang continued on to another hotel so they can staff the other event at iSential.

We’ll regroup in the afternoon for an exclusive (“By Private Invitation Only”) event at the local Dell offices in Amsterdam.  [Cue Ian’s inner monologue: “Speaking of Dell in Amsterdam, I wonder if the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!” guy is now based here (wink, wink)” ]

After that, we hit up one more event at Info Support before I make my inaugural overnight journey on “The Bus”.  Then it’s off to Frankfurt for a few events on Tuesday. 

Luckily (I think), I’ve been challenge by a bit of jetlag, so hopefully the gentle/bumpy movements of the bus will rock me to sleep.

Ah, once more I compiled a brief video montage of the day’s experience:

Okay, it’s fairly early and I need to reboot my laptop in Windows Server 2008 R2 to prep my demo VHDs for my first talk on Exchange 2010.

Should be good fun!

-- hama