Ich bin ein Berliner

I wonder what happened in the last picture of the day. What was yesterday? Is it still yesterday? Flying east is truly a beast.

Our Delta One experience was different. And by that, I mean different from one another. Keith’s main flight attendant, Sue, was terrific. He got exceptional service and loved it. My aisle had Alyssa and she was more interested in talking to the guy seated in the last row of our section than doing anything else, I guess. Wait. I think I talked about this yesterday. I better read.

I’m back. Now I know what happened yesterday. I skipped the part about how we all had to get off the plane in Minneapolis. We were all settled in, picking our movie and drinking orange juice (champagne can’t be opened until we are in the air. We are more orange juice people anyway. I actually had nothing. I wonder if that made Alyssa not like me. More on that later) when they said that we needed some maintenance and all had to get off the plane. They replaced a valve on the AC and we all got back on. I am not sure how long we were delayed, but it meant that we would miss our connecting flight.

I got my eat and nap meal very quickly after we took off (we were watching the new West Side Story – so good!). It was delicious. I finished eating before the dinner service started for those around me. Alyssa came by to ask if I wanted soup. I said I had already had soup, and I was finished with my meal. Could she take my tray? She couldn’t because she was busy with the dinner service. Huh. So, dirty dishes sat in front of me for an hour (I did ask one more time if my dishes could be removed) until everyone else had finished eating. That seemed to entirely defeat the purposed of the eat and nap idea. Oh, well.

As soon as she did remove my tray, we paused our movie and snuggled in. It didn’t take too long to fall asleep even though it was about 7pm. I slept a solid two hours, which is pretty standard for me for a flight. I struggled to get back to sleep, but did get another solid nap of over an hour. When I woke up, it was almost breakfast time. I finished my breakfast and waited and waited for my tray to be removed. I finally handed it over to Keith so I could climb out and use the restroom. I got back in time for the we-are-landing-please-sit-down announcement – I am reallllly glad I created that opportunity. I waited a bit more, but as the plane noticeably started to descend, I got up and carried my tray back to Alyssa and her buddy in the last row.

We parked our plane in a place far away from the airport and took a bus ride to the terminal. There was a woman shouting at people and making them wait on the steps out of the plane. We weren’t sure what that was all about, but we felt it seemed quite French (NOT fair…but sadly, we have had a lot of not nice French people interactions). In the terminal, we got in line for customs. We showed our connecting flight info to a worker and then waited in a crazy line. Thingsthingsthings then we realized we were not in the right line. BUMMER.

We went upstairs. We went downstairs. We waited in some lines. We went back upstairs. We went through customs where there was literally no one else but the two of there. We were told to go to two different agents. Keith was done in 30 seconds. I just stood in front of my lady and she did not look at me. Eventually Keith’s guy waved me over and I was in (hacker voice). We found fellow travelers. None of them had slept at all. It totally blew my mind. I was DEFINITELY more comfortable in my great laying down seat than in a regular seat, but I did not sleep much more than I usually do on an 8 hour flight, because I have always slept. You have to sleep! NO ONE I talked to had slept at all. I don’t know how they survived today.

Since we all missed our connect, we all got different new flights. Most were on the 12:50, but we got the 3:25 (which the boarding pass lady kept calling the 3:45. Confusing until I just decided it was a translation thing). They went off to be there earlier than us. We got ham and cheese on a baguette sandwiches (very good) with free money the boarding pass lady gave us. Some of us got it for being delayed; others did not. We wandered the little hall of shops – literally nothing to look at – and then found the Air France lounge. We were way too full to eat anything, but I had a tiny Coke.

We got on our plane to Berlin. The world was a little spinney, and I just fell asleep after the guy said we were going to be delayed on the tarmac for about 30 minutes. I woke in the air, with the lady starting service. She gave me some very scary looking fish and some delicious looking dessert (it also had pink peppercorns in it. Pink peppercorns are always interesting), but I could just not imagine eating anything else, so I asked her to give it to the man behind me (Keith). He said it was EXCELLENT. I had champagne and Coke. 🙂

The luggage was delayed coming off the plane (about 30 minutes), but our stuff arrived – including our two tubas! How great is that?! The bus that was supposed to pick us up at 11:30 originally was rescheduled and scooped us up at 7:30. We just cannot express how happy we were not to have to get a taxi for us and two tubas (for a while that seemed like that was going to happen.

Others are off to a beer garden now for dinner. We are not hungry. Keith wanted to practice and I wanted to write this, so we said see you tomorrow! Our hotel is very nice – we are on the third floor and there is an elevated train track right outside our window. I opened the doors – no balcony, just doors and a fence – and a train came from the right. I waved at all of the cars. Then a train came from the left. I waved at all of the cars. One should be friendly. It was shiny sunny so I couldn’t tell if the train people were waving back. Probably.