Les Voyages
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At the moment I am sitting at the IGF, in between two very interesting workshops, titled Measures to Prevent and Fight Child Pornography on the Internet: Strategies for Developing countries and Protecting Children from Sexual Exploatation through ICTs.
More later ….
By Nana | November 13, 2007 | Topics: Conferences, Les Voyages | No Comments »
wink wink
Over a month since my last post … my readers try to warn me that this is a one way ticket to Con Brio-disappearance from a blogosphare.
Well, no. Just a bit of a quiet period;)
Right now, I am attending a CAQDAS conference at Royal Holloway University of London in Egham. Great old building, nice people and my dear Marie-Helene is here as well. Actually she is just about to give a paper.
Otherwise, I am (obviously) overloaded with work, mostly teaching, partly research and almost nothing on writing new papers (mind you this part is really the urgent one). Well, I am hoping for that in upcoming weeks when the teaching load will be considerably smaller.
Last week, I had also fun, not only work, as we had a 3rd tango festival in
What else? Well, this blog is in desperate need for proper posts so I am happy to host anyone who wishes to write …
Or maybe I am about to wake up from a nonposting dream ….
By Nana | April 20, 2007 | Topics: Conferences, Les Voyages, Tango | 2 Comments »
London Incident
I was in London.
Airo happened to be in London at the same time.
We were delighted at the unexpected chance to meet.
We agreed to meet at 10pm in Covent Garden (next day we both were leaving).
He sent me a text message that he has been arriving.
I sent him a text message that I was already there.
I was waiting for him.
He was waiting for me.
No Airo around.
No Nana around.
A few more texts were sent.
He should have been there.
She should have been there.
He left.
I left.
We both were there for more than half an hour, probably a step away form each other, but because of the delay of text message deliverance, we missed each other only by fraction.
Another good lesson about the reliability of new technologies.
By Nana | February 2, 2007 | Topics: Les Voyages, Personal | 3 Comments »
Delayed Story from Hamburg
From now on (I am not exactly sure for how long, cos there is some strategic thinking to be done after yesterday, when I found out internet could not be connected to the flat I live in as there is no telephone connection), things will be delayed on this blog … if it is possible to do more delaying than I am actually doing already;))
So Hamburg … was really nice. Mostly due to two major factors: I had been set into a *MEGA* room, which was nearly an apartment (it was bigger than my current apartment) in the hotel we were staying at.
Upon arrival, the receptionist (which I also believe was the owner of this petit fine hotel) said:
“Miss Lobe (putting an accent on “o”, pronouncing it in a very German way (Lobe is a German surname anyway)), you have been put in a room 16, which is my favorite room!”
That sounded quite promising to me. So I was expecting kind of more-than-on-average nice and cosy room. But when I had actually entered, I was astonished by its actual size and furniture. It had a big double bad on one side, then on the other side, a huge sofa and two armchairs and a little table. Above the sofa, a few meters tall palm-tree was climbing up to a quite high ceiling. In yet another corner there was a working desk and the entrance to a *huge* terrace. And the bathroom … well, it was enormous, needless to say with a huge bath.
So I was telling to one of my friends from the network what a huge rooms were in there. She said hers was not particularly big but was nice. Just after coming back from the dinner, she stopped by and was literally shocked. We soon figured out from the house plan that it was of a size of four standard rooms. As I *love* big spaces, this was a lucky day for me indeed;)
Well.
I didn’t quite have the time to enjoy all that ‘luxury’ as we had been quite busy with our EU Kids Online meeting, which was really enjoyable and efficient itself. After starting off the project late June in London, this was our second ‘whole network’ meeting, but with some of the members we met in September in Luxembourg.
To tell it in short, our aim is to identify as many studies as possible across Europe regarding children’s access to and use of the internet and new online technologies (we basically already did this, and so far available data can bee seen on our page). Next, we are trying to understand this data itself as it derives from different social, cultural and national context and to compare these studies as to identify the changing risks and safety concerns associated with children and new media uses. Finally, we will produce some best practice research guide for those interested in conducting research with children and will develop evidence-based policy recommendations for raising awareness, media literacy and other practical actions to promote safer use of the internet and new online technologies for children.
What I like the most, is the enthusiasm and effort every involved researcher in the network is putting into the project.
All in all, I saw a very little of Hamburg (I took the above picture 5 minutes before my departure on Sunday morning) but no regrets as we really did some big steps forward in our work;)
By Nana | December 16, 2006 | Topics: EU Kids Online, Les Voyages, Research | No Comments »
Maltese Weirdness
Hourses are moored alongside luzzus and boats:
Further (I have been told this word is used way too many times in my PhD), children are:
Each and every bus has it own face and are very personalised in general. Each has it’s own name,all are very nicely polished on the outside, but on the inside:
Warriors and fighters can be met all over the place:
And jellyfish are very socialised - I got burned 5 times and it only hurt me for an hour or so - they just want to play a bit:
Just about the right island for me;)
By Nana | October 15, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages | 5 Comments »
Got What I Had Deserved
I don’t think I need to mention the name of the place. I am deep in denial. I am not home yet - at leats not in my head.
By Nana | October 11, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages, Personal | 6 Comments »
What else happened?
I met an incredible person Marie-Helene, I had a great post-conference time in London but this I will write when I write my 1000 for today … being a bit behind;)
By Nana | July 30, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages, PhD | No Comments »
EasyJet leads by the nose
Not only that they cancelled two of my flights without informing me beforehand, but they also have a very sophisticated way of getting rid of costumers on the phone.
On Friday, when I spoke with them about my cancellations, a lady said: “I am going to put 314 pounds on your account as a compensation for cancellations.” If you look at their terms and conditions, indeed an amount of 240 Euros per cancelled flight is mentioned.
So that lady asked me my credit card details, supposedly doing a transfer whilst I was on the line. She says: “Well, it just went through.”
I still haven’s seen those 314 pounds. I think it’s ethically compromising to get rid of customers like that, but they have their way. Let us see where it will lead them.
***********************
Updates on very nice mixed methods conference in Cambridge and London these days follows.
By Nana | July 14, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages | 2 Comments »
EasyJet Nightmare continues
I just found out today’s flight, which should happen in less then 4 hours, has been cancelled - like on Sunday, nobody informed me and this time I found out form Slovenian Aerodrom Brnik website.
Will tell more later, currently I am dealing with these very impolite people to reschedule …
*********************************************************************************
UPDATE:
Well, I am suppose to be flying out on Sunday now, but how can I have any trust left in them. Also, my returned flight has been cancelled - not that they told me, but Brnik information desk told me that EeasyJet cancelled the following dates in JULY, on the line Ljubljana - Stansted or vice versa:
2, 7, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24, 28, 31
I know, would be extremely nice if EasyJet actually informed any of the passengers as well, instead of letting us finding out 2 or 3 hours prior to our departure time.
Mind you that to reschedule flights I had to call +448706000000 in the UK. Crazy! Well, I told them to call me back at their expences, of course.
They should change their “Thank you for flying with us today.” into ” Good luck if flying with us today!”;)))
By Nana | July 7, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages | 4 Comments »
EasyJet Nightmare
I left London yesterday morning, going to Stansted Airport to take an EasyJet flight home till Friday, when I am going back to the UK. I arrived at check-in at 11am for the one o’clock flight. There was no sign of check-in-Ljubljana point. So I went to one of the other check-ins asking where was the check in for LJB flight.
Lady: Well, you can check in anywhere, also with me ..
Bojana: Ok, cool …
EasyJet lady: ohh, I forgot … but Ljubljana flight has been cancelled
Bojana: Whaaaaaaat??????
From this point on, the nightmare began. There were 12 Slovenian people of us, and couple of English. Have you seen the TERMINAL? There was a slight resemblance;)) There were all these EasyJet people at the Customer Information point, but all of them were only “handling agents” apparently not being able to do a thing, apart from telling us that the next flight was on Tuesday.
Well, the fact that they did not inform us about cancellation made it even harder. They were not open to any discussion, constantly repeating that the are only “handling agents”. Ok, after some hours we were able to speak *on the phone* to some kind of manager in Luton. Richard something, who was stubborn, was trying to persuade us that we received those emails that were supposed to be sent out on 27th of July. None of us got those emails, plus there were people amongst us that left Ljubljana only on 28th which they would never have done, had they known the flight had been cancelled.
Anyway, that Richard kept saying he can not do a thing, and I kept repeating we would have not settled for any less than getting back home on Sunday, even if they had have to order a private jet. They cancelled the flight, we were not notified about it and they should have dealt with consequences in order.
Step by step, hour by hour, talking to loads of “handling agents” and Richard, we managed to book the flight from Gatwick to Venice at 6pm, getting just the last free seats - what a luck! OK, then we needed the transportation first from Stansted to Gatwick and then from Venice to Ljubljana. They wanted to send us on a train and again we did not agree. We requested a bus from one airport to another and then one to our final destination - from Venice to Ljubljana (there was no other transport anyway late at nite).
The flight was cancelled *due to operational reasons* which we all knew were too few passengers, so was not cancelled due to any higher power and they were obliged by their own terms and conditions to ensure us to get to our final destination.
To make a long, but really long and traumatising and tiring story short, by 5pm approximately, we managed to negotiate the transport from Stansted to Gatwick, the food vouchers, and the transport from Venice to Ljubljana. All 12 of us, who really performed as a team, were persistant untill the end. Loads of blah blah, tons of stupid excuses and ignorant behaviour from their side, talking to many “handling agents”, Richard and some Alex, we finnaly made it. Got home at 3 am. I still have a headache, especially when I think that I need to take their flight back to London on Friday.
Apparently four of us were university people, employed at UL, and we had all been to London for projects or a workshop, which means we will get the tickets reimbursed. We could have taken Adria. But we did not, as we are of opinion that it does not matter whether it is EC money, our money or UL money, we should not be wasting it. Well, lesson learned.
I am (or was until recently) a frequent passenger on EasyJet and did not had a bad experience before. But this really outweighted all the trust I had in them. We had to fight to get to Ljubljana, they were quite happy with leaving us in London till Tuesday. Their attitude was highly disturbing, like we were a piece of luggage … like if we had have no obligations and places to be today …
On Friday, I will call to the airport to check whether the flight is still shceduled;) And even then I won’t be quite certain.
By Nana | July 3, 2006 | Topics: Les Voyages | 3 Comments »
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