Friday, March 9, 2007
Wrong Turn in Atlanta
Well, sorry to everyone who followed my previous post. If you did you probably noticed that my flight from Jacksonville didn't take off until after my flight from NY had left. Luckily, I looked at the departure boards in Jacksonville with enough time to realize this. Apparently it decided to snow in the busiest travel sector in the country yesterday.
When the flight to La Guardia was delayed 3 hours and was supposed to take off before mine to JFK, I became a little suspicious. I asked an unbelievably helpful Delta employee by the name of Annette Ellis (thank you so much!) what the deal was and even though she was getting ready to go home she stuck around to re-route me so I could avoid the mess up North.
My new plan of attack included a stop in Atlanta, and then to the dreaded Paris Charles-De-Gaule airport before finally making my way to Berlin. Luckily Annette finished my re-routing just in time for me to board the flight to Atlanta.
Can't say too much about the first two legs of the flight other than I didn't sleep much and that the brand new Delta 737 was pretty nice, with in-seat entertainment consoles. First I'd heard of these was from the Feb. 8th Diggnation but that was on the (soon to be) new Virgin America. Basically you get a little touch-screen TV in your seat, right above the tray table on which you can choose movies and television shows to watch, and even play games. The games feature is pretty cool as some of them you can go head-to-head with other people in the cabin. I got a high score in Trivia (just for you Jason), and watched Man of the Year and some Arrested Development (for you Chad and Greg).
I arrived in Paris with a ton of ecstatic old ladies finally getting to visit Paris for the first time and their supportive husbands. I hadn't had much sleep as I can never sleep on moving vehicles but surprisingly didn't feel too bad.
Now, I'd never been, but I've heard horror stories of the Paris Charles-De-Gaule airport. The place is immense. It's like it's own little city. But it wasn't too hard to figure out where to go. Just look at the board, find your gate number and then follow the signs. What was weird was that I had to go to through passport control to get to my other plane. I didn't think much of it as I was just trying to connect, but it turns out this saved me from explaining myself to passport control in Berlin.
I made my way immediately to my gate and eventually my plane boarded in a much less orderly fashion than state-side travelers would behave. One more point up against the French, eh? On this flight I pretty much passed out. I had a sweet seat by the emergency exit which provided me first-class-like leg room, and I was able to doze off a couple times.
Then we arrived in a gray-skied Berlin. I wasn't too concerned about that as the weather still seemed pretty warm and all I really wanted to do was nap for several hours. I could see Sofie grinning ear to ear through the glass at the gate and was immensely relieved to see that all my luggage had made it even with the re-routing!!! Kudos again, Delta!
I packed my stuff into the back of Sofie's room mate's borrowed car (as it was bigger than her mini). Oh, and I guess I should mention we were blocked in as some popular boy band, US5 got out of their charted van. Sofie said any girl in German under 14 years old would have killed for that random meeting. Lucky me.
Well, das ist alles fuer jetzt (that is all for now). Stay tuned for my podcast!
When the flight to La Guardia was delayed 3 hours and was supposed to take off before mine to JFK, I became a little suspicious. I asked an unbelievably helpful Delta employee by the name of Annette Ellis (thank you so much!) what the deal was and even though she was getting ready to go home she stuck around to re-route me so I could avoid the mess up North.
My new plan of attack included a stop in Atlanta, and then to the dreaded Paris Charles-De-Gaule airport before finally making my way to Berlin. Luckily Annette finished my re-routing just in time for me to board the flight to Atlanta.
Can't say too much about the first two legs of the flight other than I didn't sleep much and that the brand new Delta 737 was pretty nice, with in-seat entertainment consoles. First I'd heard of these was from the Feb. 8th Diggnation but that was on the (soon to be) new Virgin America. Basically you get a little touch-screen TV in your seat, right above the tray table on which you can choose movies and television shows to watch, and even play games. The games feature is pretty cool as some of them you can go head-to-head with other people in the cabin. I got a high score in Trivia (just for you Jason), and watched Man of the Year and some Arrested Development (for you Chad and Greg).
I arrived in Paris with a ton of ecstatic old ladies finally getting to visit Paris for the first time and their supportive husbands. I hadn't had much sleep as I can never sleep on moving vehicles but surprisingly didn't feel too bad.
Now, I'd never been, but I've heard horror stories of the Paris Charles-De-Gaule airport. The place is immense. It's like it's own little city. But it wasn't too hard to figure out where to go. Just look at the board, find your gate number and then follow the signs. What was weird was that I had to go to through passport control to get to my other plane. I didn't think much of it as I was just trying to connect, but it turns out this saved me from explaining myself to passport control in Berlin.
I made my way immediately to my gate and eventually my plane boarded in a much less orderly fashion than state-side travelers would behave. One more point up against the French, eh? On this flight I pretty much passed out. I had a sweet seat by the emergency exit which provided me first-class-like leg room, and I was able to doze off a couple times.
Then we arrived in a gray-skied Berlin. I wasn't too concerned about that as the weather still seemed pretty warm and all I really wanted to do was nap for several hours. I could see Sofie grinning ear to ear through the glass at the gate and was immensely relieved to see that all my luggage had made it even with the re-routing!!! Kudos again, Delta!
I packed my stuff into the back of Sofie's room mate's borrowed car (as it was bigger than her mini). Oh, and I guess I should mention we were blocked in as some popular boy band, US5 got out of their charted van. Sofie said any girl in German under 14 years old would have killed for that random meeting. Lucky me.
Well, das ist alles fuer jetzt (that is all for now). Stay tuned for my podcast!
Labels: Atlanta, Berlin, Charle-de-Gaule, Delta Airlines, Paris, travel, US5
