The Road to Iberia, part I ...
The night before we were to leave Carmen and I went off to buy a nice piece of rolling luggage at the local Kohl's. It is a silver color not matched by anyone else's luggage so it is easy to spot as the carousel whirls around. Then we went to Radio Shack so I could get a plug adapter for my CPAP machine (I can tell a distinct difference if I do not use it every night). The manager of the store when he heard we were going to Portugal immediately said "Oh, are you going on a mission trip?" He was the second guy to say that to Carmen. Tells you something about the community we live in.
We got up early the next morning for what would be the only difficult day of our trip. At first things looked good. We got to Charlotte Airport without any of the usual traffic jams on the interstate, and our flight left promptly on time - which since it was US Air was quite a surprise.
Bad weather, or rather the antiquated and underfunded air traffic control system of this country, kept us in the Dulles International Airport for an extra three hours. The place was packed with travelers and we were exhausted already when we got on the plane. People got on, dinners were passed out almost immediately, eaten immediately, and trash collected immediately. Then everyone went to sleep as soon as the lights were dimmed. There was little chit-chat and little reading.
The next day, after 5 or 6 hours in the air we were at Heathrow Airport, or Gorminghast International as I like to think of it. The place is like a small city built up over centuries, a little bit at a time, with several of the architects being at least as mad as Prince Ludwig. We rode in a shuttle for about 5 full minutes, going between buildings, around buildings, and under buildings, to get to our terminal.
When we got there we continued our journey through an incredible maze of flimsy temporary corridors until we came to the desk handling TAP, Portuguese Airlines. There was one lone woman trying to handle all of the passengers who had arrived late and needed a new flight - but she seemed to keep her spirits up and get the job done.
I think she was Italian.
She was handling accounts for several small airlines like TAP Portugal. One was Uzbekistan Airlines - I didn't even know that the Uzbeks even had an airline.
But, we made it on the plane, the Portuguese crew was very nice, professional, and oh so stylish. Within a few hours we were in Lisbon.
The night before we were to leave Carmen and I went off to buy a nice piece of rolling luggage at the local Kohl's. It is a silver color not matched by anyone else's luggage so it is easy to spot as the carousel whirls around. Then we went to Radio Shack so I could get a plug adapter for my CPAP machine (I can tell a distinct difference if I do not use it every night). The manager of the store when he heard we were going to Portugal immediately said "Oh, are you going on a mission trip?" He was the second guy to say that to Carmen. Tells you something about the community we live in.
We got up early the next morning for what would be the only difficult day of our trip. At first things looked good. We got to Charlotte Airport without any of the usual traffic jams on the interstate, and our flight left promptly on time - which since it was US Air was quite a surprise.
Bad weather, or rather the antiquated and underfunded air traffic control system of this country, kept us in the Dulles International Airport for an extra three hours. The place was packed with travelers and we were exhausted already when we got on the plane. People got on, dinners were passed out almost immediately, eaten immediately, and trash collected immediately. Then everyone went to sleep as soon as the lights were dimmed. There was little chit-chat and little reading.
The next day, after 5 or 6 hours in the air we were at Heathrow Airport, or Gorminghast International as I like to think of it. The place is like a small city built up over centuries, a little bit at a time, with several of the architects being at least as mad as Prince Ludwig. We rode in a shuttle for about 5 full minutes, going between buildings, around buildings, and under buildings, to get to our terminal.
When we got there we continued our journey through an incredible maze of flimsy temporary corridors until we came to the desk handling TAP, Portuguese Airlines. There was one lone woman trying to handle all of the passengers who had arrived late and needed a new flight - but she seemed to keep her spirits up and get the job done.
I think she was Italian.
She was handling accounts for several small airlines like TAP Portugal. One was Uzbekistan Airlines - I didn't even know that the Uzbeks even had an airline.
But, we made it on the plane, the Portuguese crew was very nice, professional, and oh so stylish. Within a few hours we were in Lisbon.
posted by Clemens | 10:39 PM
2 Comments:
What an interesting traveloque. Looking forward to next installment. We missed the 2 of you today.
Hope you had a Happy Easter.
We had a good Easter. I will keep posting news of our trip. Maybe Joey and Ems can put up some more pictures since we didn't take a digital camera.
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