Monthly Archives: April 2019
Almost . . .
But Not Quite Yet.
I spent the morning trying to cram 4 suitcases of stuff into only 2. Or at least that’s what it seems like.
But really we’re doing OK, I guess. There’s a 50# weight limit on our checked bags and 17# on our larger carry-on bags, and so far we’re under those limits, but just barely.
In some cases it’s a game of ‘do I want to take this or do I want to take that’, or ‘which weighs more, this or that’. But whatever, we’ll be ready to go tomorrow morning when our car service guy gets here at 10:30.
Jan and I headed out this afternoon about 1pm, with our first stop at King Food for some of their great Hot & Sour Soup, and then it on for a quick stop at my client’s to double-check a couple of things before our trip.
Then heading home, Jan picked up a few things at Palais Royal, a local department store chain, finally getting back to the rig about 3:45.
But after getting the kid’s will copies ready to be mailed off, I headed back out, first to the PO, and then over to Dickinson to return our Impala a little early, so we won’t have to deal with it tomorrow morning.
Our Lufthansa A380-800 leaves Houston Intercontinental at 3:55 with a 9 hour 45 minute flight to Frankfort, Germany, a 3 hour 30 minute layover, and then a 90 minute flight on to Budapest. This means that we will be getting into Budapest at 5:45am Saturday morning for us, but 1:45pm Budapest time, since they’re 7 hours ahead of us.
Then I imagine we’ll spend some time in our room napping and getting ourselves turned around to local time. The next day, Sunday, we have free to get acclimated before starting our cruise on Monday the 29th.
Thought for the Day:
Sometimes the good you do doesn’t do you any good.
adfd
We Got The SuperJumbo Size . . .
Now that we’re getting down to nitty-gritty time I though I’d check out the planes that we’ll be flying on.
Turns out that our flight over, from Houston to Frankfurt, will be on an Airbus A380-800 SuperJumbo, the largest passenger plane now flying.
So now I’ll have the complete set since I’ve also flown on the previous ‘largest’, the Boeing 747, starting back in the ‘spiral staircase piano bar- lounge’ days.
Then from Frankfurt to Budapest we’ll be on an Airbus A321 for the short 90 minute flight.
Finishing up coming home, we’ll be on a United 787 Dreamliner flying from London back to Houston.
Flying back and forth from South America in the early 60’s, I flew on both the Douglas DC-7, a turboprop, and the DC-8, the first jet I ever flew on.
And flying between Colombia, S.A. cities, I flew on Ford Tri-Motors like this.
Mostly though, they were Ford Bi-Motors, I guess, because the centerline engine had been removed for more cargo space, and the wing-mounted engines were replaced with DC-3 engines to make up the power loss, and also allow them to fly over the high mountain passes in the Andes.
It gets a little scary when you’re flying ‘through’ Andean mountain passes with rock faces off both wings, and not ‘over’, because they just can’t fly that high.
Checking SeatGuru.com, I located the seating chart for our plane and flight, and found where our seats are located.
Note that by reserving seats on opposite sides of the aisle, we both get an aisle seat, yet we can still talk. And we did this on all our flights on this trip.
And also note that we’re seated in Standard Economy, i.e. the Cheap Seats. I thought it was kind of funny that the next level up is called Premium Economy.
Isn’t that kind of like Jumbo Shrimp or Non-Dairy Creamer,
Tomorrow we’ve got a few wrap-up things to do and then we’ll be ready to head out on Friday morning when our car service arrives.
Thought for the Day:
I’m becoming a cranky old person and it really annoys me.
sdfgs
