ADS team meet Budapest – 2022 December

Some walked, some took the bus or the train, and some flew to the location of the Aviation Data Solution workshop in December 2022. In the heart of Budapest, we met to discuss company history, how far we are in our projects, which directions are we heading towards, and most importantly, what new and exciting projects are coming.

There is no Christmas without presents and to our surprise, Eva and Renata prepared personalised gifts for everyone at ADS: we got ADS themed  baseball caps with our initials written in the NATO alphabet. Our initials are a great part of our daily data work, and this idea was especially heart-warming. Me, Anna Onodi (AO) became Alpha Oscar. Fun fact, Adrian Parsons, founder of ADS is Alpha Papa (pun intended).

We all work remotely, and we are constantly busy in our own mind-cocoon, so this meeting was tremendously useful to see the big picture. Hearing about how well the company is doing, the positive feedback from clients and details of further plans give us the best motivation to continue our challenging but rewarding work.

After the workshop, some additional guests joined us for lunch. A fantastic group gathered around from 14 cities of 3 countries! We had late lunch in a lovely, traditional Hungarian restaurant and not surprisingly, Goulash soup was the front-runner meal of the night. Thanks to the smart seating plan, wonderful new professional relationships were formed and lots and lots of great stories were told.

The rain couldn’t stop us from “walking off” the gorgeous meals. We strolled around the Christmas fare to have some mulled wine and buy souvenirs for our families. Following, our next destination was a wine bar, because where else would one take guests in Hungary if not to a wine bar! More productive, casual and fun conversations followed about a possible future field training, assessment tasks, homemade honey and The Lord of the Rings.

Slowly, people started to leave to catch the last trains or buses. Some of us, who live too far and stayed in a hotel, had a quiet, but not least fun after party in an Italian restaurant and returned to the hotel with a husky voice and aching cheeks from all the laughing.

I can’t wait for next Christmas!

– By Alpha Oscar. (Technical advisor: Kilo November; proofreader: Zulu Sierra)