Monday, March 05, 2018

My Europe Trip in April

I have been trying to work out the details of my speaking trip next month, complicated by issues of how to get from point A to point B in Europe. The current fixed points are the three weekends:

April 13-15 ESFL Belgrade
April 21 Sofia
April 28th Oslo

I have at least tentative invitations to speak in:

Maastricht, Netherlands
Prague, Czech Republic
Poland
Barcelona
Italy

My first thought was that Maastricht was close to Oslo so I should go there a couple of days before my Oslo talk. A little online research showed me my error--distance in miles, distance in hours, and distance in dollars have only a loose relationship. It is faster and less expensive, as best I can tell, to fly between Maastricht and Warsaw, Maastricht and Barcelona, Maastricht and Rome, ...  than between Maastricht and Oslo.

By my calculations, I have time for four more talks, assuming one day for travel between each pair of talks. It looks as though all of the likely locations other than Maastricht have reasonably good air connections to each other and some of them have tolerable connections to Maastricht.

The next step is for anyone who wants a talk and is willing to pay my expenses–a hotel room plus air fare to their location from whichever of the other locations I end up flying from–to let me know what days would work and what city I would be flying into and out of. I can then calculate a reasonable schedule.


9 comments:

EH said...

I was clicking this in the hope youd mention the netherlands; but Maastricht also isnt next door for me either... who is your Maastricht host? It isnt unlikely they are attracting an audience from around anyway, so perhaps they are open to hosting it in a more connected city?

Antoine Bourget said...

Well, you chose cities that are basically on a circle centered on Maastricht (with a less than 5% error) ! And since Warsaw, Rome and Barcelona are respectively between two and four times bigger than Oslo, the price difference is probably justified.
Concerning the flight duration, I admit it is more tricky.

Tibor said...

When would you be in Prague (if at all)?

David Friedman said...

Tibor: I don't yet know.

Ste said...

Hi David,
Are you interested in visiting Bucharest?
It could be a great stop between Belgrade and Sofia. If you'd be up for it I could look into covering expenses, there's a really nice crowd that I think would love to hear you over here!

All the best,
Ste

David Friedman said...

Ste:

Bucharest looks interesting. It has non-stop flights from Prague and to Sofia, which would work for my first week. That would put me there speaking April 19th. Can you check on whether it works at your end?

Ste said...

Hi David,
Thanks for getting back!
I've sent you an email on DDFr@DavidDFriedman.com, let me know when you receive it.
Hopefully we'll see each other in Bucharest on April 19th!
All the best, Ste

David Friedman said...

Ste:

I am not seeing your email. What was the subject line? You may want to resend.

Ste said...

Hi David,
It was titled "Bucharest 19th of April", might have ended up in spam.
I resent it, let me know if it works this time! :)
Thank you,
Ste