I’m writing this after a great day of walking about
Edinburgh and a pint of Belhaven, so there’s that. Please excuse any syntax
errors; do call me out on the grammar though.
The flight in was interesting. Not interesting bad, just
interesting. I flew Air France, which has to have the most beautiful flight
attendants in the world. I mean wow, could they BE any hotter!? (Read that with Chandler
Bing inflection.)
My long flight was first from IAD to Paris, Charles de
Gaulle. When I arrived at Dulles (thanks Mom!), the line was easily several
hundred people long. Yes, hundred. Apparently the same flight the day prior had
been cancelled so there were plenty of angry people to be had. I stood in one
line for about twenty minutes before being redirected to a much shorter line nearer
the counter. Had I read the sign I would have seen that those with preprinted
boarding passes could use the shorter line. Who doesn’t preprint their boarding
passes these days?
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| The end of the first line I stood in. The counter is waaay off to the right of this picture. Lots of happy people |
I stood in that line for another twenty minutes full of
uncertainty. Is this the KLM or Air France line? Does it matter? It didn’t. An
Indian lady behind me in line was quite rude and brushed past me in line to get
to the counter. It wouldn’t be the end of rudeness that day.
Finally I checked my bag (bonus for having a checked bag
included in the price of the flight! Point Air France) and made my way through
security which was very short. Shortest line through security ever. I did get the body scanner though and
apparently they couldn’t get enough of JG so the TSA dude got word through
his earpiece and I got a torso pat down. A full body pat down and I would have
expected him to buy me dinner. No clue what they saw on the scanner because I
was wearing a button down short sleeved shirt and nothing else. Oh, I had pants
on. I meant nothing else on top. Just to get that straight.
Finished with security I took the new Aero Train to the gate
where I saw the A380 we were flying on. Man, that sucker is huge! Boarding was
fairly smooth and I took my window seat in the back with the common folk. Lots
of Frenchies on board and I thought I was in the clear, but the ubiquitous
screaming baby quickly made her/his presence known. Did I mention the flight
attendants?
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| That's double height the whole length, almost 600 person capacity. |
The A380 is a pretty cool plane. It has cameras in the nose,
tail and belly that you can watch while you are flying. That and a big
selection of movies are all in the seat back in front of you. I watched Salmon
Fishing in the Yemen (see it), The 5 Year Engagement (skip it) and half of
Haywire (probably see it). The food on the plane was quite good. I had the orzo
pasta with curry and grilled chicken (cold), Provencale-style penne pasta
(hot), cheese, entremets (?), strawberry lemon cake and white wine. Breakfast was a blueberry muffin, yogurt and
tea. The flight was 6.5 hours to CDG and we landed that big boy a little
sideways, or at least it look like it through the camera!
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| Crash fire rescue at CDG. Thankfully not needed. |
de Gaulle airport is quite modern and sleek. There were
quite a bit of fire extinguishers with one about every 50 feet in the hallway.
Wonder what they are worried about? Before I got on the train to the terminal
for my connecting flight I had to stop to confirm directions. While waiting
patiently for the lady to finish her conversation with the lady in front of me,
this older French guy barged right in and started asking questions. When she
pointed out that she was already engaged in assisting someone else, he went to
the next person in a huff. I witnessed it again with a separate person a few
seconds later.
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| CDG fire extinguishers in designed holders. |
I soldiered on only to find out that I had to go through
screening again. This time I didn’t have to take my shoes off, but after I went
through, the agent asked me if I parlez voused francais. Thus the title of this
post.
She pantomimed to me that I needed to take my camera (DSLR)
out of my backpack to send it through separately. That or she wanted to see my
trombone. Then it was my mini binoculars. That or she was calling me a crying
sissy. I couldn’t tell for sure.
Suitably ensured that I wasn’t a hazard to the French I
waited in the terminal for about forty five minutes. Spectacular people
watching though. Then we boarded a bus that felt like we were driving to Orly, but
managed to find our way to the high winged Avro jet on the tarmac. With me on
the bus were six Indian doctors from Ohio on their way to a golf junket in
Scotland. I winced when I saw the baggage handler sling their golf bags on the
cart. I don’t think they saw it happen, otherwise they'd been pissed.
We left around 10:15 and the little six year old boy seated
next to me passed out while we were taxiing and slept through takeoff. I mean
passed out, neck crick inducing asleep. I wish I could do that.
We landed a little over an hour later in Edinburgh (pronounced
Edinborough with a slight trill of the r) and breezed through immigration and
customs. Coming down through the clouds I could see it was raining a bit but
the countryside to the east was really lush. Just the vibrant green grasses I
had imagined. I found my way to the Airlink double decker bus and paid my fare
to ride in to the city.
The double decker buses are quite interesting. I’m not sure
how we didn’t hit anyone or anything because the roads are rather small. That
and the turns are tight. Apparently they are putting in a light rail from the
airport to the city center, so we had to take a few detours. It’s also several
billion pounds and over budget. Sounds familiar? (Ahem, Dulles rail, what?)
The bus dropped me off at Waverly bridge where I made my way
down a ramp in to the train station which sits in a valley between the hill of
Princes Street on the north side and the Royal Mile on the south. After a bit
of wandering around I found the luggage place we were supposed to meet and
after only a few minutes D and K showed up.
Apparently their flight was a bit more eventful than mine.
They flew from Reagan on United and because the plane was very small, both had
to gate check their bags. They rarely ever check a bag, so when they got to
Newark and they didn’t see D’s bag on the carousel, he was quite put out as all
of his clothes were in the bag. They only had a little time to register a lost
bag before hopping on the 757 to fly from Newark to Edinburgh. Once their they
spent most of the time on the remaining batter of his cell phone (adapter in
the lost bag) talking to United customer (or lack of) service, most likely in
Bangalore. We waited for a few minutes while D called again and that’s when he
first heard something out about Salt Lake City, as in his bag was in Salt Lake
City.
We figure we should at least see about some additional
clothes for D in case the bag was never to show up. What did we find? Yep, an
outdoor store with Arcteryx on sale! While out shopping we picked up some bites
to eat including a cheese melt at a street fair. Wow, was that good!
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| Street fair with Edinburgh Castle in the background. |
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| It eased the pain, slightly, of lost baggage. |
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| I want to say it was Mull Cheddar cheese melted with ham on a roll. |
After that we returned to get our bags at the train station
while D got our Tattoo tickets. Then the three of us ascended the hill to the
Royal Mile to our flat. We met Katie, the manager of the flat rental agency,
who showed us around a nice two bedroom place on Chessel’s Court just off the
Royal Mile. In Edinburgh, the Courts are little courtyards arranged around a
greenspace usually that are accessed off little alleys or arched openings from
the Royal Mile. A Close is also a feature of Edinburgh, which is an alleyway,
usually stepped that run off the Royal Mile to the next street over.
All three of us were a bit ragged, especially with D’s lost
luggage, so we all crashed for a bit before getting ready for The Royal
Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
Stay tuned!
