For those that don’t know, iDTGV (not affiliated with TGV) is a train service in France that I keep calling iDTVG for some reason. Seriously, though, iDTGV is an interesting train service because it caters to my demographic – you know, the one that doesn’t appreciate screaming freaking kids running amok while you’re trying to enjoy some quiet time, a baguette and maybe a bottle of wine en route to Nice from Paris. They have train cars that cater to a number of needs – iDzen for the traveller who may want to chill out or sleep, iDzap which has a jovial and engaging atmosphere, a bar that feels more like a real bar / cafe and iDNiGHT which is the overnight dance party train with DJ and liquor service.

Pretty cool huh?

Sadly, on a recent trip to France, I wasn’t able to actually experience iDTGV. You see, despite booking some reasonable tickets online and being assured everything is copasetic, hours later, the system would tell me that my credit card has been refused. After what seemed like hours on the phone to my credit card company, they noted that no authorization was attempted, so I was like WTF?!

After trying to reach the company, pacing around, trying every credit card in my arsenal, losing my reservation and the likes, I took it upon myself to visit a train station that purports to have an iDTGV booth. Guess what…. it was a freaking Internet kiosk with no people in sight! After making several enquiries, I was told that in most cases, there are no iDTGV staff at train stations except to manage departures. GREAT!

BTW – while I was out on my escapade, and thanks to SFR’s 3G+ internet service, I received the following reply from iDTGV:

From: Service Clients iDTGV [mailto:reclamation@idtgv.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 5:51 AM
To: Rajesh Taneja
Subject: <Ref3688321> Question sur le paiement

Dear Sir Taneja,

We acknowledge receipt of your message on the payment of your order.

Please note that for security reasons you can only pay by credit card French, European or American.

We remain at your disposal for any additional information you consider useful.

Best regards
Nadège
Service Clients
Une question sur iDTGV ? Consultez la rubrique « Besoin d’aide » de notre site !
www.idtgv.com
Du lundi au vendredi
de 09H00 à 18h00
(sauf jours fériés)

<rant>So what? In France, Canadians are chopped liver? What about Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach, Operation Overlord and the Battle of Normandy? Haven’t we paid our dues? If it weren’t for the Canadians’ presence in France, I suspect that Nadège might’ve been Wilhelm and French would be an elective in secondary school.</rant>

After the whole excercise, we wound up at the SNCF booth and booked to be on a TGV train to Cannes the following day, screaming children in tow *sigh*.

I spent the last day with Galit of Haaretz (Israeli daily newspaper), showing her around town and doing some shopping. I picked up some foie gras – nothing spectacular.

On the morning of return, I cruised back to the airport at 160km/h. The cab driver was quite proficient and for this he got quite a good tip. I boarded and took the plane (Lufthansa) to Frankfurt.

The trip from Frankfurt to Toronto aboard Air Canada was dissapointing. The stewards and stewardesses are all way over the hill. I have concerns that a fat, balding, 50+ year old man isn’t going to save my ass during an emergency. Another issue is that this person remains to being a flight attendant, bitching about how his pay has been cut twice instead of thinking on how he might be able to apply his knowledge in serving those of multiple cultures in contributing back to society.

Another issue I had was that the plane was filthy and the service poor. I will definitely avoid Air Canada for future international travel. They’re just not world-class as a carrier. To top it off, no Internet connection on the plane. So much for being ‘connected’ in transit.

All ranting aside, I made it home in one piece which is a miracle. The guy sitting next to me was an american soldier. He was doing some private work in Iraq and wanted to come home. He decided the best way would be to come through Canada since they wouldn’t stamp his passport on entry and therefore he could go about stating that he was out of the US for over 360 days thus entitling him to getting his $80,000 of income tax free. Interesting thought.

On another note, this weekend was good. Friday I stayed home, chilled out, Saturday, went to Low 02 which is a new forms festival event – an experiment into electronic music which was pretty cool (photos to be posted in a bit) and then today I had an opportunity to sit down with the Company of Friends from Fast Company and let them know how life is and how refreshed I truly am from my journey.

Apparently I was cited again in the most recent issue of Fast Company. I look forward to checking it out in hard copy. Link is here.

It’s funny, I’m sitting in a panel that’s discussing “Blogs and Grassroots Media” with D. Gillmor as Chair, Dresdner Kleinwort, DAD, LinkedIn and The Guardian participating.

• D. Gillmor on the left,
• LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman next to the right of D. Gillmor

(on the board of Six Apart – does Movable Type and Typepad)

• The Guardian, Amin Azhar

(business called Twentysix as well)

• One other guy, didn’t catch his name…

If any nuggets come from it, I’ll write about it.. in the interim, I’m blogging on my own.

Yesterday was great. Spent the day in session, getting to know my new friends and then last night, I wound up at a Villa in St. Paul de Vince last night instead of going to the China Night cocktail party. It was a small group, 15 people and some really interesting people. The evening was co-hosted by Alex Witherill of Lehman Brothers and Brian Skiba of the Viant Group (who actually owned the place). It was a huge place, actually the place next to Michael Schmukaker’s home which should put things into perspective. We started off with Champagne then moved off to Canapés, some good red wine and then a light dinner. A good night with great people.

Cathrine, Brian’s wife has an extensive art collection, a link to her collection is here.

This morning, I walked from my hotel to the Martinez as per usual, took some nice shots of a cruise ship rolling into town.

Lunch was good, some good people at the table as per normal, Peter asked me to sit down and Shika Lubna Al Qasimi (apparently she’s royalty) whom I had breakfast with on Sunday, and Eric Benhamou, from the board of directors of 3Com were present. We enjoyed our three course lunch and then convened to session where I am currently.

During the morning while watching the events transpire, I used the wireless LAN which was provided to add events to the UM calendar as well as to prepare the latest mailing (a day late). Finally got it out which is a load of stress off my shoulders. I find that there are a number of good resources out there that I can draw on to put good events up. I’ve ran my ideas in to a couple CEOs during this week including the quality over quantity item as well as endorsement questions (what if the events are pure crap). The consensue was that content was king. Good to know that the UM is on the right track!

On the bus in, I ran into Irfan Rajani of Apparent Networks (Vancouver as well). He had come in from London where he was doing business. Small world, I thought I was the only Vancouver representative at the ETRE conference. He invited me out to dinner after I had settled in but being that I was exhausted from the 16 hour journey, I wound up taking my time to unpack and then by the time it was complete, it was too late for dinner. I sent Irfan an SMS with my condolences which he appearently only got the following day.

After unpacking, I went for a trip around Cannes to seek the Hotel Martinez where the conference is at. After three hours of wandering, I was feeling a bit hungry and tired so I decided to stop at this kebab place – best kebab I’ve ever had and they’re open until 2am,

I was able to get my bearings and have a good understanding of the whole area from my walks – I usually do this on all of my travels – it is most useful. The sole concern in my mind was safety but really, I had nothing to lose if I was robbed.

The following morning (Sunday), I went out to the conference by foot (having a good understanding of how to do that…), on the way to the hotel, people were already swimming – the sun wasn’t even out yet too. Breakfast was poorly attended – perhaps not everyone is an early riser. Met some really nice people and some people to look up to. My finding is that those who have most to offer are really really nice. Of particular mention were four people who I feel I will have long lasting friendships with in the future:

• Peter Liu of WI Harper Group
• George Hara of Defta Partners
• Motokuni Takaoka of Nippon Kouatsu Electric Co., Ltd.
• Gerry Briggs of Europe Entry

All were very kind in the morning and through the day, I developed a real liking for all of them. George and I went on a city tour of Cannes. We were the hardcore ones since the rainfall was tremendous, it did clear up during the trip around town and got really nice so the original group of 40 that started really missed out – in the end it was a tour for three people, George, myself and his father. I was able to learn a great appreciation for George, his father and the tourguide – also got to practice my French with someone.

(Today’s pics are located at this link)

Incidentally, during our trip, we were able to find out about the name of Cannes (named after sugar cane reeds which are indigenous to the area), Croisette, the little cross on the church which was on the main street when that was all that existed on the street, Suquet, (means small head ou petit tete), the top of the hill which houses the castle in Cannes, Les Petit’s Fleurs de Versailles (Marijuana) and la train de pines (the train which goes so slow up hill that people could grab pine cones which they would burn for the aromas)…. Also got to check out the story for the legendary man with the iron mask who was banished for some years to an island off of Cannes… The market also housed some delicious food. I will have to go back and endulge some more on the fresh organic Foie Gras and beautiful breads.

The conference was really fun today. I especially enjoyed the Meet the Money session where CEOs got up to pitch their ideas to VCs and having Alex Vieux (of DASAR) as the moderator. Alex was especially discerning during the presentations – some would call him the a* word if you know what I mean but I suspect it was all in good fun and he kept the agenda right on time. One CEO didn’t even come up on stage – he sent his VP Marketing up to take the fire. Upon completion of the presentation, Tim Draper’s (MD, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a VC Firm in the Bay Area) commented that the first thing he’d do is blow out the CEO. I’m sure that was a wakeup call for the CEO.

The evening was provided by Microsoft, a good evening cocktail at a casino. Some food was provided as well – mostly canapes and after that I was hungry so I showed my new friend Galit Yemeni of the Isreali newspaper Haaretz back to her hotel and then went off to the kebab place for dinner. A decent, fast place open at 11 o’ clock at night…

Tomorrow, another day. Have to be up in six hours for another full day at the conference.