Just in time for lunch

San Diego

San Diego at last! After two days of being cooped up in planes, I was greeted by a blue sky with a few of the cuddliest of clouds and a frisk breeze from the harbour blowing away the mustiness of sitting too long in planes.

The trip was not as expected but as feared. After landing in Paris, CDG I had exactly 50 minutes to catch the flight to Atlanta. And that day CDG wasn't showing itself from its best side.

The huge amounts of travelers going through the security check were being herded in separate queues. Each queue was easily 100 people and ours was being redirected to 1 scanner. Never mind the 2 scanners next to it which were not opened and could have been used to speed up the process. In the end I had 10 minutes spare to make it to the gate.

Fortunately boarding was delayed... due to a strike of the workers of the refueling company. So in the end we left 1h later than expected which left me to worry 9 hours about making the connecting flight to San Diego.

A flight of such a distance is always eery. After several hours on a plane, you enter this dream-like state where you spend time looking at the flight map trying to nudge the numbers with your mind, browsing listlessly the movies, shifting in and out of unfulfilling naps or eagerly expecting the alien food. When you finally stumble out of the plane reality feels gritty and your brain feels like it is covered with felt.

The security clearance went smooth - after contributing my fingerprints, trying to formulate coherent answers to the customs officer and hoping they didn't want to talk about the 15kg of foodstuff I brought for my host, I went to rebook my flight.

Good news was that the hotel was quite close to the airport. Bad news was that the next flight to San Diego was the next morning so I'd miss the morning session of my first training. I was booked into a hotel, got a $7 meal voucher (I had to cough up $2 extra when I used it) and a kit with an oversized T-shirt, toothbrush and shaving cream (no razor though). The hotel was ok and clean; yours truly spend his jet-lagged night time using the free WiFi and trying to figure out the secret handshake to operate the shower.

The flight to San Diego was uneventful and I was glad finally to arrive albeit horribly belated. On the bright side, I just arrived in time for lunch.

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