Third stop Hamburg

From London I winged my way to Hamburg to be met by my best and oldest friend Reinold Hillebrand and whisked away to the most northern parts of Germany where he and his family live in Faulueck. And as usual, we had wonderful 24 hours of talking, eating, drinking, pipe smoking and just having a good time. Our friendship which now goes into the end of its fifth decade, and started, as the saying goes in German, im Sandkasten, is such, that we could continue a conversation mid sentence after it was rudely interrupted for 12 or so months.

After a very brief stay at my sister’s house, the next leg of the trip was to be started and on the wings of Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, for those not entirely familiar with the dutch language, KLM in short, this took me from Hamburg, via Amsterdam to Kampala, capital of Uganda. For reasons unknown to me, the chaps from KLM decided that Kampala would be a worthwhile destination in their worldwide net and I don’t argue with them on that one.

Some of my friends, a few years back, to be precise in 2004, somehow suspected that I had withheld the news from them that I was appointed to the board of directors of Emirates Airlines. Another very plucky airline which I like and frequent a lot. And the reason for such suspicion was the fact, that said airline introduced two new direct connections which seemed far too much tailored for me (in 2004 I started my regular travelling to Uganda) as to be introduced randomly or based on sound economic grounds. And those direct services were Dubai – Kampala and Dubai – Hamburg.

Since this was my 13th trip since March 2004 to Kampala, things were to some extent routine for me. But it’s always a huge pleasure to see my boys and spend a few days with them.