We can't get away from the snow

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Munich 2008

December 24-25, 2008

We awoke to another day of winter wonderland in Portland this morning. After nearly two weeks hoping that the weather would clear and be a typical PDX rain for our departure, we realized that was a bit unrealistic. Good thing we still had the chains on our car! We left plenty of time to drive the icy, snow-packed freeway to the airport, making the 20 minute trip in about an hour.
We saw all of the warnings about delays and long lines and so came prepared. Yet the lines were relatively short and the people were pleasant. (Of course the people were pleasant - it’s Portland! And Christmas Eve!) I found a used book at Powell’s to add to my collection of travel books. I’m always a bit more ambitious than my reality, so I probably won’t make it to reading this particular addition on this trip, but one can always hope.

Currently the plane is listed as on time (a Christmas miracle!), so hopefully we’ll be in Salt Lake City in a few hours, and from there Paris - then Munich!

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It has been a long day, but Merry Christmas. I decided a few things on our trip over, the first and most important being to tell everyone I know NOT to fly any US airlines internationally - the level of service is nowhere close to international carriers. While I did appreciate Delta’s attempts to mimic international carriers by giving out eye masks and ear plugs and even once a “refreshing towel” (read “moist towelette,” not hot towel), it doesn’t even begin to measure up to Lufthansa or Asiana. I think that this was my first time flying an American airline out of the country, so I don’t know if all American airlines are like Delta, but my guess is that they are all similar. I told Matthew that in the future it will definitely be worth the extra $100 or whatever it is to fly Lufthansa. That said, I really appreciated Delta getting us to our destination and making up for delays. This was very important because we only had one-hour layovers scheduled, which made me nervous with flight delays. By now, I don’t remember why we were a bit late getting to Salt Lake City, but we were. The pilot asked that those who don’t have immediate connections let those of us who could miss our flight off first, but few people seemed to listen (and the guy in our row was actually downright rude - I almost said “Excuse me, you’re not from Oregon, are you? Because Oregonians are not rude like you” but it wouldn’t have made a difference to his attitude. We were in the second to last row on the plane, so it took the usual amount of time to get off and then figure out where our next gate was. SLC is actually quite large, and we took off at a sprint (literally) to make it to our connecting flight to Paris. As we boarded, I noticed the cabin looked a bit emptier than I expected. About ten minutes later the captain announced that they had just received word that a flight from San Francisco was delayed and we would need to wait an hour for it - he apologized for having us board so early, but the time went by quickly enough (although if this had been Lufthansa or Asiana they would’ve offered beverages I’m sure, which would’ve made passengers a bit more gracious - I think Delta was lucky it was Christmas and everyone was in a good mood).

There were many families with small children flying to Paris, and even with our San Francisco counterparts there were still a few open seats - enough that two families could allow their small children to stretch out and sleep (which hopefully helped keep them from being cranky). One blond guy was rather funny - every time I looked up, he had changed seats. This is not an exaggeration. He just kept rotating from one random seat to another around the back of the cabin. I’m not exactly sure why. But it did remind me of crime novels that have problems identifying people in plane crashes because they’re not where they’re supposed to be. Of course thinking about plane crashes when traveling on a plane is not particularly pleasant, so I tried not to dwell on this thought.

Charles De Gaulle airport is HUGE. We taxied several miles, arriving in 2E. Great! I thought. Our next leg is in 2D, that must be close! I was hoping it was close because our flight was 20 minutes late landing and so we had about 30 minutes to make our next leg to Munich. I now know that 2D is nowhere near 2E. We sprinted a mile (I calculated because I was wearing the pedometer), then had to go through another security checkpoint, but we made it just in time and had a nice flight to Munich.

Matthew’s mentioned people complaining about how complicated the S-Bahn and U-Bahn can be in Munich, and I was able to experience that first-hand. It took us a while to figure out how to hop from line to line to eventually end up near our hotel, but we made it. Navigating in Germany is much easier than in the Czech Republic because here most things are in German and English. We’re learning some phrases to get around, but it’s nice to be able to read signs without having to think too hard or use a dictionary.

Our hotel is quite cute and we’re looking forward to exploring the surrounding area tomorrow. Things are a bit quiet today because it’s Christmas, but there were still a few little bistros open when we walked by on the way to our hotel. We had our priorities straight: shower and then sleep. Tomorrow we’ll have plenty of time to explore.

Merry Christmas.

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Photos

We can't escape the snow
Amazingly, it started snowing shortly after we arrived at our hotel. We can't escape the cold weather, it seems.