Notes from a vacation: August 28
Sep. 19th, 2007 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbakerAll The Way Home
The line at the Berlin airport was long. Really, really long. Eventually we realized that we were in the wrong line entirely – the one we wanted to be in had quasi-merged with the one we were actually in. So were the four people behind us. Germans may be efficient engineers, but when it comes to queueing nobody beats the English! I switched lines while![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bonacorsi looked for (and found) the self check-in. There are certain advantages to divide-and-conquer. After another long wait, we spied the bag drop-off for self check-in, and did that. If we seen both right away we’d have cleared everything in ten minutes or less – each counter or two had its own X-ray and customs, so that was a breeze.
The airplane to London was marred by a very stinky guy in the seat right in front of me. All of us in our row turned on the air to maximum, and somebody in front of his row opened up a bottle of cologne. Fortunately the flight was only an hour and a half.
Heathrow customs and security, however, was a typical example of English efficiency. This meant that it took over an hour to crawl from one queue to the next. Didn't we just do this in Germany, where it took 30 seconds? We still made our transfer flight, but with not a lot of time to spare. I hit the "Whiskies of the World" duty-free that I'd scouted a few days earlier. I would have enjoyed chatting with the salespeople if I'd had time; as it was, I grabbed the bottle of 16-year-old Lagavulin single malt I had spotted before, paid, and left. I'm not sure it was cheaper given the strength of the pound but it was a limited bottling I couldn't get elsewhere. What the heck. (I cracked it a couple days later: it's quite smooth.)
My Blistex and other semi-liquid items disappeared during the X-ray process. I had dry lips the entire time, some of which was purely psychosomatic I’m sure.
At least three hours of the 9+ hour flight was punctuated by a single screamy baby. In the immortal words of Raoul Duke: "It's amazing how many childcare problems can be solved with duct tape." I wish.
Home, extremely upset and vocal kitty. It's good to be back.
What I read: Lisa Goldstein, Dark Cities Underground
The line at the Berlin airport was long. Really, really long. Eventually we realized that we were in the wrong line entirely – the one we wanted to be in had quasi-merged with the one we were actually in. So were the four people behind us. Germans may be efficient engineers, but when it comes to queueing nobody beats the English! I switched lines while
bonacorsi looked for (and found) the self check-in. There are certain advantages to divide-and-conquer. After another long wait, we spied the bag drop-off for self check-in, and did that. If we seen both right away we’d have cleared everything in ten minutes or less – each counter or two had its own X-ray and customs, so that was a breeze.The airplane to London was marred by a very stinky guy in the seat right in front of me. All of us in our row turned on the air to maximum, and somebody in front of his row opened up a bottle of cologne. Fortunately the flight was only an hour and a half.
Heathrow customs and security, however, was a typical example of English efficiency. This meant that it took over an hour to crawl from one queue to the next. Didn't we just do this in Germany, where it took 30 seconds? We still made our transfer flight, but with not a lot of time to spare. I hit the "Whiskies of the World" duty-free that I'd scouted a few days earlier. I would have enjoyed chatting with the salespeople if I'd had time; as it was, I grabbed the bottle of 16-year-old Lagavulin single malt I had spotted before, paid, and left. I'm not sure it was cheaper given the strength of the pound but it was a limited bottling I couldn't get elsewhere. What the heck. (I cracked it a couple days later: it's quite smooth.)
My Blistex and other semi-liquid items disappeared during the X-ray process. I had dry lips the entire time, some of which was purely psychosomatic I’m sure.
At least three hours of the 9+ hour flight was punctuated by a single screamy baby. In the immortal words of Raoul Duke: "It's amazing how many childcare problems can be solved with duct tape." I wish.
Home, extremely upset and vocal kitty. It's good to be back.
What I read: Lisa Goldstein, Dark Cities Underground
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-19 09:46 pm (UTC)On our trip to Spain a few years ago (2003, was it?), I was much amused at the difference between the Frankfurt and Madrid airports. When we stopped over in Frankfurt, we had our passports examined so that we could get to the wing of the airport that held our flight to Madrid. When we arrived in Madrid, there was no one at the customs desk. So we walked into the country with no questions asked. I was much amused.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 04:06 am (UTC)