This post was supposed to be made 10 700 m above the sky on a 747 from Frankfurt to Washington DC. It has been years since I was last on a 747 - 12/13 years if my memory is correct (and that is rather untrustworthy) - but I don't remember it being this cramped ... I have probably had better leg room in Kulula or EasyJet and the plane seats 10 on each row (in economy anyway)! The connection is a Boeing initiative (www.connexionbyboeing.com) and is rather pricey ... but they gave away US$ 10 vouchers before boarding, so I am not paying anything. The $10 buys 30 minutes "airtime" by the way ... definitely the most expensive WiFi rates I have used. But as the title suggests - it did not work - and the stewardess put it nicely - its an old plane - and only new planes, ironically mostly Airbuses, have the functionality.
A few more comments on Frankfurt Main airport - they have an outside observation deck; although I could not work out how to get there; but did see a lot of people milling about. It also features casinos but they seem to be rather empty (although being 11am could have had an impact on that point). And the airport is huge and there are literally queues of planes landing and taking off - it is quite a sight. But the fact remains, its a crap airport to wait for planes ...
Another point I forgot to mention in the last post - the pilot did a nice flyover round False Bay, Cape Point and Table Mountain - which was very cool to see from the air - although there was quite a bit of cloud cover by Cape Point. According to the pilot, this is a popular feature of the flight.
Lunch on the flight was better than the Cape Town flight but that does not really say much - a rather bland Roast Chicken fillet with roast potatoes, salad and and some fruit cake. At least they use real cutlery ;) No attractive female passengers next to me - just an old couple returning home - friendly though (and the old lady is reading Harry Potter). There seems to be a lot of Indians on this plane ... and many assume that I am also from India, which I find a bit amusing. And talking about food and Indian passengers ... can they be fussy. An old man and his wife across the aisle raised up a fuss about what constitutes a Hindu meal ... he settled for the chicken in the end which I found puzzling and polished off a few beers and a wine to boot. And for you wine connoisseurs, they serve it in plastic glasses .. not even in fake glasses like SAA!
Getting from the airport to the hotel proved to be costlier than I hoped and more time consuming to boot - still beat the price of a taxi directly from the airport. The only notable incident on the train - two teens playing Magic the Gathering on the train ... a game that I though took both a lot of space and a lot of time; but I last played it about 10 years ago. The hotel mixed up my reservation a bit - so ended up scoring two free meals for tomorrow (as a show of regret for their follies I suppose) - but hey I am not complaining. And now I need sleep ...
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