Bye! Bye! Californica

"The Journey is the reward"

eff.com

Actually those stupid coupon books are better than the internet deals. Fortunately, the coupon books are also on line.

Interesting, for a holiday perhaps. I've seldom found it cost-efficient to unduly skimp on accomodations for business travel, and Berlin is a pretty inexpensive city to start with. The total cost for a relatively short overseas trip is always in the four digits per day range, and minor inconveniences can add up to a lot of lost dollars, especially in a place where you are not fluent in the language etc. It doesn't have to be the $800-$2000 a night palatial city-center landmark (like the Penninsula in Kowloon, or the Four Seasons Park Lane in London). The latter was the standard hotel where BP put up senior level consultants in London. Nice place.

Airfare is a bit easier to cut costs on in many cases.. I fit a regular airline seat just fine and seldom use the ability to change return trips so a reasonable fee for that is okay.

Cheapest place I've stayed on business was an apartment hotel for

It was remarkably refreshing. Like a big reset button, you walk into the convent and immediately the din of the big bustling city stops. I'd do it again. Even though my cell phopne will not work in Germany.

Berlin inexpensive? You've got to be kidding.

I think the most expensive hotel I ever stayed at was the George V in Paris. To be honest, I liked others better. Such as this:

My favorite are mon and pop places like the little bed & breakfasts in Scotland. Not because they are low cost but because it's just all less commercial there.

My cheapest one was around half that. At the end I paid the room tab for both myself and another engineer, because I happened to be first at the front desk (doubling up at the bar) and we had a 7h or so truck ride ahead of us. EMC labs can be in very remote places.

Then when I turned it in for expenses rumors flared up. "Now that was not for two rooms, was it?". The other engineer was female ...

Better? What good does it do if none of the hotels in the city you need to visit participate? I just keyed in Laguna Hills, CA -> nada, zilch. Went to hotels.com where I booked last time and lots of hotels show up. Mine even runs a special now at $83. And since there's a BJ's across the street I'll book that again next time, via Internet deal :-)

Oh, really quite inexpensive. It's not even in the top thirty worldwide, and much cheaper than any other northern European capital.

You can rent a decent apartment for something like 500 Euros there... Try that in Toronto, San Francisco, New York, let alone Oslo, London, Paris or Moscow.

Apartments, yes, hotels no so much. But you can get an apartment for much less than 500 Euros in New York. Best to have a very burly and muscular build though, and preferably some mean tattoos :-)

Yes so much.

Try looking for a 3-star hotel in Berlin. They are available for less than 100 US dollarettes. It's $300-500 starting price in Paris, London, Hong Kong, Toronto etc.

Hey, aside from that place in Laguna Hills being 200m from I5 it was okay? Not too noisy? I see my usual cheap place ~30min further north has changed ownership.

The scary thing is that it's offered at 75% of the price in dollars that it was back around 1990, despite being recently renovated. They can't possibly be making money.

The Kempinski is $145 on the Internet. That is not exactly cheap. We used to stay a little south, just behind where the iron curtain used to be.

I didn't hear any road noise, slept with the A/C off and the window open. But I am not very noise sensitive and had a few of BJ's brewskys inside of me. The only thing I was missing is that they have continental breakfast and no bacon. Yet a rich breakfast with boiled eggs, cereal, fruit, yoghurt and so on. Just a tad too healthy for my taste :-)

Well, not really surprising to me. California is scaring and driving away business. The latest shocker was when a friend who owns a large commercial building said that he can only get 25c/sqft in warehouse rent. Twenty-five cents!

or

=A0"The Journey is the reward"

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.speff.com

Because sometimes there is a coupon you can use. You check the coupon book and the internet. Been there, done that. Not that you are probably not going to find a difference more than 10%, so this isn't the end of the world. Often you can do better just booking with the same chain and taking their deals.

=A0 =A0 =A0 ... I've seldom found it

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 ... The total cost

EMC labs border on places to dump bodies.

I've seen those mobile test lab trucks driving around the bay area. I have no idea if they are any good.

Well, they do need pretty good radio silence or the open field tests will be frustrating. I've had to do two pre-compliance sessions right next to a busy runway. That is no fun at all.

No idea but if the result is that coveted letter that says your stuff is compliant is should be good enough :-)

My favorite one is CKC in Mariposa. Also Rasek in Germany. At the Mariposa lab you can do country dance at the saloon at night. Once there was even a genuine saloon fight, just like in Westerns. Should have seen the tourists scurrying. On the range, when you are doing open field you have to watch out for deer poop (seriously).

Actually, I wasn't joking about the body dumps.

Just recently there was a woman who killed (allegedly) another woman and cell phone tracking indicated the body is somewhere in Sunol. I think Joaquin Murrieta's gold is out there too.

I love golf resorts. Golf is a silly game, but the resorts are almost always nice places to stay. If you're in San Diego, try the Rancho Bernardo Inn; wonderful place. I can get you a discount. Not far from Stone Brewery.

John

Whoopie doo. There are breweries dotted all over the whole county. Nearly all of which are better than stone's overpriced crap.

Sam Adams' bottle beer is better than that. Way better, in fact.

Been there? The outdoor setting is beautiful, and the food is really excellent. The frogs can get pretty loud, if you sit out near the garden part.

On a biz trip, the price of beer doesn't matter.

Too hoppy for my taste, but that's just me.

We just had Red Beans and Rice and Purple Haze, which worked somehow.

John

Cool, thanks. Superb location.

View from my room...

ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/RB_Inn.jpg

Beats the heck out of your average Holiday Inn.

John

But it does not beat this:

It's a small series of pics take 10sec or so.

Nice, but not well located for business trips!

One of our big customers is a few minutes from the RB Inn. And gets us corporate rates.

John