Back at yyz and yet another snowstorm.
Due to some bizarre construction at the Bologna airport (take an immediate illegal U-turn when you come up out of the underpass rather than driving half way around the airport to the rotary and save 5 minutes) we arrived at check in for our BLQ-FRA flight about 30 seconds after the agent had closed it.
As we walked up she said curtly, “the flight is closed.” We asked how much we had missed it by and she said “the flight is closed.” We asked if we could get on the next flight at 18:10 and she said “Maybe, I will get to you in a few minutes.”
So we stand around pleasantly and wait. Eventually she takes our passports and swipes them, a few seconds later she gives us a big smile and says she’s sorry and she will make a call and thinks we can get on the plane after all…
And after all that, the plane was 20 minutes late. .
The red carpet club in FRA has 220 outlets with exposed metal springs carrying live current (you can connect more or less any plug style just by holding it against the springs - even fingers). The bathroom is pretty and all the free alcohol you can drink… but the Lufthansa Senators lounge is much nicer: the outlets are safe and the toilets clean themselves.
I finally seem to have made it to the highest known rung of UAL’s frequent flier program - the semi-secret Global Services rung. It is so semi-secret that I have no idea what it really means as of yet except that I should get first crack at upgrades and am allowed to board the plane while the cleaning crews are still on if I’d like. So far it also seems to come with first dibs on extra nuts and dinner choices.
Unfortunately UAL isn’t flying much of anywhere out of OAK any more - they just cancelled the OAK-ORD flights as well as the OAK-IAD flights leaving only OAK-DEN and OAK-LAX. That bites. OAK is infinitely easier than SFO.
The antenna module on my PHL to IAD flight was held on with masking tape. It must be the best tape ever! I want some.
I never noticed these fine instructions before. How to use the toilet.
Note that airplane
toilets do not have standing water in them, the bowl is empty until you fill it up in step 1. Note also that in step 2 the user is disposing of a rather large volume of dark fluid. Perhaps the turbulence that is making waves caused some gastric distress. In any event, at least I now know that funny seat in the little private room on the plane is really for.
This is such a bizarre pictogram that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was added after the aircraft was manufactured by someone unoffical. Whoever designed it is brilliant.
A theme?
(The Red Carpet Club in Denver)
Fog! You’d hardly know you were in new York in the blackness.
