About a year ago in 2010, my project partner Saurabh and I, arranged to go on our initial site visit to the BorgWarner Markdorf plant. We arrived in Zurich on April 12th and were picked up by an arranged taxi. Our first stop was the plant, where we met with the Managing Director and project champion Hannsjoerg Herrmann, the Human Resources Director Karsten Weber, as well as our project supervisor Philip Schuster. We enjoyed a classic European lunch - sandwiches with fresh cheeses, breads and smoked meats, and then headed off to a tour of the manufacturing facility, which was followed by a brief introduction to our summer project. Saurabh and I had the afternoon off, and decided that we would get some rest at the hotel before going for dinner. BorgWarner was incredibly hospitable and had arranged for us to stay at a very nice local hotel called Hotel Bischoffchloss, which when translated from German, means Bishop's Castle.
The second day of our site visit was spent in meetings with different teams of colleagues that we would be working with over the summer, such as the 'Tauber Team' and the 'Lean Team'. We also took the opportunity to sort out some administrative and HR issues like our work VISAs and accommodation over the summer. Saurabh and I then had dinner with our project supervisor and Janine from the HR department at the popular lake region of the area, Friedrichshafen. Throughout the entire night, Saurabh and I received the warm hospitality of both Philip and Janine, as they introduced the local area, sights and lifestyle.
The third and last day of our site visit had a similar agenda to Day 2, but having been exposed and introduced to the plant, Saurabh and I were able to pose our own questions to gain a better understanding of our project. We also began writing up our initial project proposal, which I believe was due pretty soon by that time because we had our site visit late.
The next morning, Saurabh and I were once again picked up by a taxi to go to the Zurich
airport, which is about 2 hours away, for our flight back to Detroit via Amsterdam. The cab ride there was uneventful, and so was the first leg of our flight. At the Amsterdam airport however, we boarded our flight and sat waiting in the cabin for about half an hour as the plane waited on the runway for the go-ahead to takeoff. Suddenly, the pilot's voice came through the intercom, only to inform us that our flight had to deplane because no more flights could leave from the Amsterdam airport. Guess what? The volcano at the Eyjafjalla Glacier had erupted, causing severe disruption to the European airspace... Hence, we were trapped in Amsterdam.
Airport personnel could not tell us when we would be able to fly out of Amsterdam, except that it would not be soon. The general advice then was to find a hotel to spend the night, or the next few nights, since there was likely to be a large backlog of flights before passengers would be able to get on a flight out of the city. Annoyed and a little confused, we called Philip, our supervisor, and explained the situation to him. He advised us to book hotel rooms for the night, and said that BorgWarner would reimburse us for the cost of the rooms.
Needless to say, the lines for hotel bookings were LONG. All the reservation desks were crowded with trapped passengers, as were the public phones and free-of-charge direct dial phones to hotels. As you might expect, hotel room prices were quickly going sky high. Fortunately, our engineer-brains kicked in and we quickly popped open our laptops and connected to the airport wi-fi network, and then started searching for hotel rooms online. Within 15mins, we were brisking past lines of commuters waiting to get hotel rooms reserved, and heading to the taxi stand for a ride to our hotel. And so, we spent the first night at Inntel Hotel Zaandam, in the comfort of each of our own rooms, away from the stress of the airline ticket counters.
In the following 4 days, we spent 3 more nights in 2 different hotels while making daily trips to the airport to find out what the situation was with regards to flights and the airspace. Finally, on the 4th day, we decided that there was no way we'd be getting out so soon, and trips to the airport were becoming futile as no one knew when flights would leave. Tickets were not going to be sold anyway, since the airlines would simply allocate backlogged passengers to the earliest flights possible. So, I took up the offer of a friend who facebooked me about being in Amsterdam on exchange, and he brought us on a day tour around the city! (Left: us at the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam) We also lunched on some pretty authentic middle eastern food as we walked the streets of Amsterdam, which smelled distinctly of magic brownies (no we did not have any)...
Finally, Saurabh and I were put on a flight back to Detroit on the 5th day of what I like to call our 'accidental Amsterdam escapade', just in time for the many make-up exams that we had missed because of the volcano eruption.
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