Tag Archives: Airport

wherein I get to Frankfurt and wander around and reminisce…

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Greetings from Mumbai. There is apparently free wi-fi here, and I can connect to the access point and that’s it. So this may probably not get posted until much later.

It’s 3:00 am in Mumbai and it was pouring when we landed. There was so much water on the runway that the pilot used reverse thrust to slow down the 747 and did not hit the brakes until we got almost to the end of the runway. My travel adventure (part 1) hasn’t ended yet. I have another flight to catch (this one, to Goa’s short – only about an hour) and then maybe an hour’s taxi ride to my sisters house in Santa Cruz, Goa.
The last time I had a chance to sit and open the laptop was in Chicago. Where, (naturally), the United flight to Frankfurt was delayed (only by two hours). I wasn’t in any state to do anything in Chicago, so I just sat there watching a 747 come close enough to kiss the terminal as it pulled into its gate. Everyone ooh’ed and aah’ed appropriately and then we stood around and watched for a bit and then drifted off.

As we boarded, I noticed that some of the passengers were especially bitchy and realised that maybe some of my fellow SFO-ORD-FRA re-routees were happy with having to dash to the airport on short notice. Me – I just wanted to get it over with. That didn’t leave any time or energy to be bitchy about anything.

Chicago-Frankfurt, the captain was very apologetic about the delay. Turns out that the plane was delayed getting in from Beijing, and he said that they had loaded up extra fuel and would be travelling a little faster than normal (at 0.86 mach) to try and make up for any lost time.
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