Mobile Wuchtln

One Thing was VERY sure when i returned back home from London in October: i’ll be back. i wasn’t sure when and how, but i’ll definitely come over again and get some more impressions of the city i got to know at the Ovi good things trip. Since my Company closes for some days for christmas and new year, i decided to take some more days off and fly over the United Kingdom again. I was extremely happy that my good Friend Dan Carter (World of Nokia) decided to spend the 3 days with me – a few Mails back and forth with him and the Guys over at WOM World, who did the unbelievable thing and pulled of a nice little tech meet-up with some fellow bloggers from the UK! Booking, Packing and i was all set up – Hell in London, here go:

My Trip started on Jan. 7th, not exactly the best Time to start this, considering the heavy Snowchaos in and around London. Since all was booked, and i had Sunday left if anything goes wrong with my Flight back home from the UK, i decided to start off anyways. The Flight from the Vienna Airport at 13.15 went very smooth and without any problems or delays. 2 hours later, i stepped foot on UK ground and was immediately greeted with blistering, cold weather. Covent Garden, the underground station i had to go, was directly on the Picadilly Line, the underground train that comes from Heathrow Airport. Arrived at Covent Garden and, surprise surprise, i had no idea where to go now. No sign of the Travellodge Hotel i booked my Room in, but that was figured out quite easy, with the help of some friendly UK people – to whoever you are: thanks! Checked in the hotel and waited for Dan Carter to arrive, who decided to go to the WOM World Towers first, thanks dan! lol (joking of course)

WOM World Meetup

This little get together was organized in the weeks before my arrival in London, in order to have a relaxed Evening with like-minded tech heads from all over the blogosphere, with some nice chats, free drinks and foods, thankfully provided by the GREAT People of WOM World Nokia. It was very special for me this Time, as i was about to meet some People again, who i had the Honour to meet in Vegas back in 2007 at the CES event! That’s right, in addition to Dan Carter, i also met Jay Montano again (Jay writes on My Nokia Blog and brought this awesome N900 Cake with him – that thing was epic), Frank Grindrod, Donna Suffling and Director of 1000 Heads, Mike Davison! That was an awesome Rollercoaster Ride of Feelings, its been 3 Years on this Day that we all met and talking to those People again has been amazing.

In addition to the Guys above, i had the honour to meet Chris Stobbs, with whom i had a very nice Conversation about our blogging styles (thanks again for the mention in your recap post at NomadsNirvana – Mobile Info), dani2xll (who writes on her own blog and daily mobile), the ever entertaining Nirave (writing on Mobile-Users) plus my good Friends Tom Hall, Katie Bunting and Lydia Millet, who also work for WOM World Nokia. In Addition to those Guys, who i already “knew”, i had the Pleasure to meet some new Guys, in Paul, Chris, Joel (and probably some more, if i forgot you, SORRY!)

Another Personality i had the Honour to meet at this meet-up has been James Whatley. In case you’ve been sleeping at the other side of the Moon so far, James writes on the really mobile project, as well as his own happy place, and is the newest Member of the 1000heads family. good catch there, guys!  Mr. Whatley proved as one hell of a nice Guy, it was fun having a few words with him, as it was with all the others.

The whole meet-up was a big success, with free drinks with nice people, hot pizzas, some pac-man games, a N900 that saved the big-screen premiere of the n97-mini marichi videos and some drinks in the bar near us. We were accompanied by Mike and Donna on our Way back to the Hotel, which was a very nice treat from them! We arrived pretty late at the Hotel and i was completely tired of the whole Day so i was pretty happy to close my Eyes for the Night, with big Plans for the following day!

Day 2 – Store Invasions, an edible Review and Sightseeing!

Day 2 started delicious, i had my very first english breakfast. baked beans, scrambled eggs,sausage and much more. full stomache and big plans ahead, me and dan started our walk back to WOM World Headquarters to pick up my Cap which i forgot at the meet-up. We decided to come back again later on and started straight off to Regents Street, to have a look at the Nokia Flagship Store there, which is supposed to close next month. I felt right at home, immediately getting my Hands on some of the latest Devices in there, including N97mini, N86 8MP, Booklet 3G, X6, as well as some E-Series Goodies like the E52, E72 and E55. (a little impressions report coming soon on them).

We also saw an incredibly expensive Galore of Nokia 8800 Phones, namely the 8800 black with diamonds, gold version, carbon version and the saphire one. Me and Dan were drooling all over, but decided to leave the beauty in order to experience functionality in the Maemo Lounge, which was a very nicely done Information Place for the Nokia N900 with Lots of Screens showing different Videos.

Right across the Street we decided to invade the Apple Store as well. And as much as i’m a Nokia Fan, i have to admit that the whole Appearance of the Apple Store was nicely done. A Ton of Apple gadgets ready to get your Hands on. The 2-storied Store with the big Apple Signs in its Windows was packed – and i mean packed. It was hard sometimes to get your Hands on some of the Toys at the Tables, because so many People were waiting to try them. The sad part about is, that there weren’t much more than 5 People at once in the Nokia Store at the opposite Side.

While i’m still not really interested in getting an iPhone, i must say that the Macbooks, or lets better say, the Mac OS has really attracted me. it’s so nice to use and it’s built in Applications put Windows to shame, by far. As for my next laptop choice, i think that’s almost clear now. A million of different speakers, bags, earphones and whatnot for the iphone, the helpdesk called “genius bar”, live tutorials from the apple staff and lots more gave a really good impression in their Store. Hats off, Apple.

Its a Shame how people forget their previous Lifes, right dan?!

After we have left the Apple Store, Dan picked up a T-Mobile UK Simcard with unlimited Data Usage for the rest of the trip. finally able to twitpic again without worrying about a gianormous Phone Bill, we dan and i decided to travel to the world-famous Madame Tussauds Museum of Wax Figures. This has been one of the things i really wanted to do on my next Trip to london and it was a blast. Being tricked right at the beginning by a wax-figure that looked like a photographer that was constantly shooting pics of Will Smith and some more nice treats, we had lots of fun. Nearly every major Moviestar, Politicians, Musicstar and much more have been there, and yes, they all looked very real, scary sometimes! At last i have been tricked again by a “Statue” that appeared to be real, when i was trying to picture with him and myself. That was a good laugh, while i walked away embarrassed

After the Blast that was Madame Tussauds, we returned to the Bar from the Day before, in order to have Lunch with Katie, Lids and Donna from WOM World. (Thanks a lot guys!) My Chickenburger was a tasty Way to fill my Stomache, but we were told to save our Dessert for later, as the Girls had another Surprise for us. The Surprise was another tasty one – we both were invited to do a.. well, let’s say different Way to express our Opinions about the Nokia N900, Blackberry and Apple. Different? Well, watch the Video and judge yourself, all i can say is, this was the best Way EVER to do a Review!!

As you can imagine, that was a whole Lot of Fun! Next up, was a bus sightseeing tour, for which we’ve bought the Ticket earlier this Day. The Roof of the Bus was partly opened, so as you can image, it was a pretty cold, but good Experience, being on the Road and watching almost all the Sights London had to offer. On our 2h long tour we saw good old Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the first ever Hardrock Cafe and so much more. Unfortunately the sun went down early again, so i couldnt take much more Pictures but the few i made can give you a great Idea of what went down on our Sightseeing Bus Tour!

We went for a little souvenir shopping to end this unforgiving cold Evening before walking back to the Hotel. The Evening saw me fullfilling my last “Task” for this Mission: Trying fish & chips! I missed doing this on the Ovi good things trip, so we decided to have Dinner in the Hotel that night and i decided to finally give it a try – and it was well worth it, good stuff! After some unsuccessfull Attempts to upload Pictures, i decided to perform some Shuteye early, in order to be fresh for the next Day.

After another great breakfast, all that was left was packing, go to the utrain station again and hope for some good weather for my flight back home. I must say i was extremely lucky, as my flight was right at time – as opposed to the more than 50 flights that were cancelled later this afternoon. I landed very smooth back home in Austria, my head filled with some great Memories of the whole trip and the Meetup.

First, a big THANK YOU goes out do Dan Carter, for spending the whole Time with me, and come along with me on to all the Sights we saw. Second, an another big THANK YOU goes out to the whole WOM World Team for making this Trip so special and giving me the Opportunity to meet some old and new Friends on this great meet-up. I surely had a blast there and i would absolutely love to do it again. Third, a special thanks goes out to Chris Stobbs, with whom i had this brilliant conversation about our blogging styles and for the sharing of our opinions on Nokia. I have the upmost respect for guys like you, who are not afraid to speak their mind and tell people what they think – straight in their face . and of course, last but not least, a big thanks and hello to everyone who attended the WOM World meet-up thursday night. it was fun seeing you all in person, have fun with you, talk about Nokia and just having a good Time side by side with like-minded personalities from the blogosphere. it was an honour to meet you and as i said, i would love to do it again sometime! – oh and by the way James, we’re going to cook this chocolate chili soon!

As usual, i have prepared a Flickr Set with a Ton of Pictures from my Trip to London, check it out by clicking the Flickr Logo! In case you attended the meet-up and want some of that pictures full size, let me know and i get back to you!

And also, if you want to read some more opinions on the meet-up, my Friends have each put up a nice Article with Lots of more Pictures from the actual Meetup:

• WomWorldNokia WWNMeet – by dani2xll
• WWN Meetup: The Aftermath – by Nirave
• WomWorld/Nokia Meet-up was awesome – by Chris Stobbs
• WOMWorldNokia Meetup – by Jay Montano