Yesterday was a long day, up at 4am (Amsterdam time) for a 9am flight from Amsterdam to Frankfurt. Then a flight from Frankfurt to Ottawa (flying back over Amsterdam). We got out of the Ottawa airport at 4pm, and we were home ten minutes later (the advantage of living next to the airport). I did have a techie meetup scheduled for 6pm, but my 30 second nap lasted about seven hours.
On the flight to Frankfurt, it appeared that it was a plane load of gophers. As soon as the plane stopped rolling on the runway most of the passengers popped up and opened the overhead bins. We were still on the active runway. The cabin attendees had to make several announcements to get people seated so they could move the plane towards the terminal. Usually when I have seen this behaviour before, the plane was at the terminal and was NOT going to move again. Can people not tell the difference between a runway and a terminal?
At the Frankfurt airport I did get the impression that the Ottawa airport does not get any respect. The “gate” is in the basement. Once through passport control there are no washrooms. When it is time for departure, you end up getting packed as sardines on a bus and then have the fun of climbing up to the plane. Remember, the front stairs with the cover are for first class. Cattle class use the uncovered stairs at the back.
The trip above the Artic Circle was interesting, watching people getting bundled up for 5C temperatures. (There was one Canadian from Vancouver that insisted on wearing shorts for most of the trip). It did take some time to get use to the constant sun shine. For a week, the sun never set. During that time I was questioning the logic of paying a premium for a room with a view(it never got dark in the room). During those trips, the inside cabins (the ones without windows) should have carried a premium price.
As mentioned before, internet access on the ship was poor. I was extremely fortunate to help someone at the hotel who in turn gave me an access code for the internet. So on the last day I was able to download all the outstanding podcasts and load my Zune HD up for the flight home. For a few hours, it was nice to have decent internet speed. The Zune software still has a problem of wanting to download everything at once rather than sequentially. With fast access, that is not a problem, but when it tries to do many at the same time, each download takes time from the others and you usually run out of time before anything is fully downloaded. At least sequentially, you may have a chance of at least one.
John Marshall… Visio MVP Visio.MVPs.org
john Visio MVP 