Flying there

September 26 2015

We fly a bit to the States, which uses one section of the airport. Canadian flights use another. Today we were "International," which we haven't done for almost 30 years. That part of the airport is gorgeous.

The flight was full. Helen and I had seats A and B. She got the window. Next to me was an isle, then 4 centre seats, another isle, and 2 seats by the far window. We had both a view and easy access for bathroom breaks.

I used to like flying, but hate it now with all the cut corners. This time we were with a European carrier, KLM, and I was interested to see how it compared to the abuse we get flying domestically or to the US.

It was wonderful. As we boarded, every seat already had sealed packages containing a pillow and a blanket. As they don't charge extra for luggage, there was plenty of storage for our carryons. Next they handed out FREE headphones to use with a huge selection of FREE movies and TV.

In no time the FREE drink carts were around handing out juice, water, pop, beer, and wine. Then they brought us dinner, and more drinks. It was delicious. At the exact appropriate time they picked up the trays again, and offered more drinks, now including coffee, tea, and COGNAC. We're used to airlines trying to sell us crappy sandwiches. I love KLM.

The flight is still very long. It took us across northern Canada, above Churchill Manitoba and Hudson Bay. We skirted south of Greenland as we averaged 1000 kph across the world.

It was time then to wrap up in my complimentary blanket, with my nice little pillow, and to polish off my cognac, and shut off my free movie, and try to catch some sleep.

The crew kept making periodic rounds, quietly providing water and such to the people not asleep. I caught an hour or two, but Helen did not. Over all the hours, my knees started to hurt, likely from restricted movement.

They gave us breakfast over Ireland, and we entered Britain directly over Blackpool. I had the in-flight tracking maps up on my screen pretty much the entire flight.

The Amsterdam airport sprawls on and on. We were shunted through another security check as soon as we were off the plane, which was weird. We wandered a bit to find our gate number, and then walked a marathon or two to reach it. Lots of stores and such on the way. In what what seemed a totally random location in the middle of the airport, we went through Passport Control, and got stamped. Hello, European Union.

Almost everything is one story up, at the level of the airplane doors. Our gate was all alone down on ground level. It was deserted except for a couple of airport employees on their breaks, hiding out. There were power outlets, so I charged up my ipad using our European plug converter. It worked as advertised.

There were also big puffy benches. Helen stretched out and got her first sleep of the trip. Plenty of time for that, as the layover was almost 7 hours.

Later, we did a very long walkabout, but only covered a fraction of the airport. We split a schnitzel with fries and mushroom gravy. Stuff here is expensive.

Back to our gate, and people started slowly arriving. They have free wifi here, so I texted a bit with Bernie, once his morning began back home.

When it was time to board, they funnelled us out and onto buses, that took us to our plane. Even on this short 1.5 hour flight, they handed out sandwiches and drinks, including beer and wine, at no charge. Yes, I like KLM. They did come through the cabin once with a cart full of watches and small electronic stuff, and had a credit card machine, but they didn't try and push the items, and nobody bought anything.

The flight was nice and short, under two hours. Vienna airport is any old airport, but they have an express train that runs lickitty split to a station right next to the ringstrasse in the centre of town. From there we walked a short ways to the inner stadt, and through some winding narrow passages to find Post Gasse; our own tiny alleyway. We found the pension, rang the intercome, and were buzzed in.