1st October 2014
After a day’s careful packing (my hold baggage and carry-on are both right on the limits), I think I’m ready for bed at just after midnight. Unfortunately I happened to read a line in the booking slip that I’d missed earlier – that you’re not allowed to carry computers in checked baggage
Bugger – my MacBook is buried deep inside the 23kg entrails of my checked in bag.
It takes me nearly 45 minutes to sort this simple matter out and I turn the light out at about 01:00. I hardly sleep – mainly a result of the alarm going off at 03:30. I get up, shower, shave and dress in time for the taxi arriving at 04:10. We’re soon trundling along a strangely empty A47 towards Norwich Airport.
I check my bags in (incidentally finding that there’s apparently NO problem with packing a laptop in your hold baggage
) and then move towards the departure gate. On the way, an airport employee points me at a machine and tells me I must pay a £10 Airport Development Fee.
No mention of this in all of the flight booking stuff (and the numerous other taxes this trip has already cost me) – it is as blatant a bit of highway robbery as I’ve seen in recent years…
Anyway, after the usual inspection of all the contents of my bags and jeans, I am left having a coffee (the cost of which made the Airport Development Fee seem a bargain) whilst I wait for the flight to be called.
We board the little Fokker at the normal time, but almost immediately are told by Captain Speaking that there is a delay. Apparently Schiphol (Amsterdam) has a light fog. Although it won’t affect the ability of aircraft to take off and land, Air Traffic rules mean that there has to be a greater separation between arriving and departing flights.
I’m not concerned as I have about an hour and a half at Schiphol before joining my onward connection.
We eventually get airborne at around 07:00 – about 40 minutes late – and there is just time for the charming KLM Flight Attendant to give us all a drink and a waffle(!) before we are descending into Schiphol.
We quickly deplane and I walk the ten minutes or so to Gate E9 to join my Delta Airbus. I go through another series of security checks (including standing in a scanner thing – real Man from U.N.C.L.E. stuff) before joining what is clearly going to be a full flight.
We’re boarded on time and I end up right at the back of the passenger compartment, in the last row of seats before the galley.
Won’t have any problems getting the Airbus to rotate this morning I feel
I am in the right hand of three seats, the left hand one being occupied by the lovely Sylvia from the Czech Republic who is visiting her sister in Seattle for three weeks. In a completely packed flight we are lucky enough to have the only empty seat between us.
We get a very amusing safety brief video...
Link (it's Version 5)
...it really caught people’s attention and had been well thought out. We are airborne just about on time and we settle back for the nine and a half hour flight to Portland, Oregon.
The in flight food was acceptable, the entertainment first rate (improved considerably by noise cancelling headphones) and three of the female flight attendants ‘of a certain age’ decided I needed looking after (in a non-biblical sense) – so all-in-all it was a good trip.
We arrived at about 11:40 local at Portland where, after 35 minutes or so going through Immigration & Customs, I am met by my mate Jorgé (Rubber Cow from ADVrider), who whisks me away to Rubber Cow Haus in his Land Rover Discovery.
After showing me where the beer is and failing to provide me with the internet password, Jorgé goes back to work at Nike and tells me he’ll be home around 17:30.
I am left with the onerous task of typing up the first day of my journal and making sure that Brandy and Daisy have sufficient pats on the head and other attention.
I sit out on the deck and type my journal...
...looking at the horizon to see if Mount Hood is going to make an appearance through the haze.
I then take a stroll into the garage to meet an old friend...
It’s nice to be back…
After a day’s careful packing (my hold baggage and carry-on are both right on the limits), I think I’m ready for bed at just after midnight. Unfortunately I happened to read a line in the booking slip that I’d missed earlier – that you’re not allowed to carry computers in checked baggage
Bugger – my MacBook is buried deep inside the 23kg entrails of my checked in bag.
It takes me nearly 45 minutes to sort this simple matter out and I turn the light out at about 01:00. I hardly sleep – mainly a result of the alarm going off at 03:30. I get up, shower, shave and dress in time for the taxi arriving at 04:10. We’re soon trundling along a strangely empty A47 towards Norwich Airport.
I check my bags in (incidentally finding that there’s apparently NO problem with packing a laptop in your hold baggage
No mention of this in all of the flight booking stuff (and the numerous other taxes this trip has already cost me) – it is as blatant a bit of highway robbery as I’ve seen in recent years…
Anyway, after the usual inspection of all the contents of my bags and jeans, I am left having a coffee (the cost of which made the Airport Development Fee seem a bargain) whilst I wait for the flight to be called.
We board the little Fokker at the normal time, but almost immediately are told by Captain Speaking that there is a delay. Apparently Schiphol (Amsterdam) has a light fog. Although it won’t affect the ability of aircraft to take off and land, Air Traffic rules mean that there has to be a greater separation between arriving and departing flights.
I’m not concerned as I have about an hour and a half at Schiphol before joining my onward connection.
We eventually get airborne at around 07:00 – about 40 minutes late – and there is just time for the charming KLM Flight Attendant to give us all a drink and a waffle(!) before we are descending into Schiphol.
We quickly deplane and I walk the ten minutes or so to Gate E9 to join my Delta Airbus. I go through another series of security checks (including standing in a scanner thing – real Man from U.N.C.L.E. stuff) before joining what is clearly going to be a full flight.
We’re boarded on time and I end up right at the back of the passenger compartment, in the last row of seats before the galley.
Won’t have any problems getting the Airbus to rotate this morning I feel
I am in the right hand of three seats, the left hand one being occupied by the lovely Sylvia from the Czech Republic who is visiting her sister in Seattle for three weeks. In a completely packed flight we are lucky enough to have the only empty seat between us.
We get a very amusing safety brief video...
Link (it's Version 5)
...it really caught people’s attention and had been well thought out. We are airborne just about on time and we settle back for the nine and a half hour flight to Portland, Oregon.
The in flight food was acceptable, the entertainment first rate (improved considerably by noise cancelling headphones) and three of the female flight attendants ‘of a certain age’ decided I needed looking after (in a non-biblical sense) – so all-in-all it was a good trip.
We arrived at about 11:40 local at Portland where, after 35 minutes or so going through Immigration & Customs, I am met by my mate Jorgé (Rubber Cow from ADVrider), who whisks me away to Rubber Cow Haus in his Land Rover Discovery.
After showing me where the beer is and failing to provide me with the internet password, Jorgé goes back to work at Nike and tells me he’ll be home around 17:30.
I am left with the onerous task of typing up the first day of my journal and making sure that Brandy and Daisy have sufficient pats on the head and other attention.
I sit out on the deck and type my journal...
...looking at the horizon to see if Mount Hood is going to make an appearance through the haze.
I then take a stroll into the garage to meet an old friend...
It’s nice to be back…
Looking forward to this...
