7 hours in the FCT and LH C to MUC:
After our flight from IAD landed I had planned on visiting the FCT during the layover in FRA. I had also planned on meeting with a fellow FT’er who was transiting through. Oddly enough he lives down the street from me and we were meeting there for the first time. Even though I had planned and learned how to find the FCT we spent a good 40 minutes getting lost. We found the last door in the A terminal at first, but I wasn’t completely sure, so we ended up walking to the arrival lounge on behest of the wife, she had a ‘feeling’ it was in that direction and I had a feeling she was wrong, but you know how that is. Arriving at the arrivals lounge the agent informed us of the FCT location and after schlepping back over to A we eventually found the FCT and were granted access. The formula 1 race was on TV so I settled into a seat near the TV and my wife went to take a shower, I hopped on the wifi and was soon tweeted by the fellow FT’er, I guess Americans stick out overseas. We were chatting for a bit about our routings, local doings and then we met the wives. We agreed to meet up in Houston for the American delicacy known as burgers n fries and we went our separate ways as they were about to head back to the US.
My wife and I were feeling a little peckish so we headed off to the restaurant to sample what DO and CO had to offer. I had put my camera away as I was unsure of the policy in the terminal, so I used my cell phone, apologies in advance for the quality.
Berkel with excellent ham –
Another rule that I was pretty sure about was not to approach celebrities, as you can see in the picture but cannot make out, that was Will.I.Am, not really a fan of his music however. He also just sat in the restaurant area with headphones on eyes deep in his iProducts.
Ham and eggs:
After I had a small breakfast I went to see the shower/bath attendant to see if I could get into the shower room with the bath as I needed a duck. Luckily it was available so I put my name down and went to grab my bag.
Duck and tub ready to go:
I started to clearly have too much fun:
Natural element:
http://instagram.com/p/W9EEvole6q/
I spent about 45-60 minutes in there relaxing and getting ready, sorry for anyone waiting. When I got out my wife was speaking with the couple from our IAD flight from row 1, I got all caught up and we started chatting about our routings and where they were off to, how they got delayed going into Vilinus. We learned that they would be in Bangkok when we were and agreed to meet up for drinks and or dinner. During our conversation I started on hitting the throttle on scotch.
Scotch page:
Oban 14:
Macallan 18:
The pour on the Macallan was ‘how you say’ generous? I decided to go poke around in the restaurant again as I wanted something for lunch. I saw that they had now put out the ‘good stuff’ aka Pata Negra, and yes I am a huge fan of cured meats and an even bigger fan of Iberian Ham. I once had to smuggle in 500 grams of high quality ham in my shoes from my last trip in Spain. Thankfully the customs beagle didn’t smell anything.
I grabbed all the ham that was sliced, I couldn’t find a knife to slice more so I attempted to just bring the leg over to my table but the attendants asked what I was doing and told me to stop, oh well I tried. I guess they allow you all the scotch you want, but sadly not jamon, so I grabbed some cheese and crusty bread and settled back into my scotch. It was snowing out at this point and it painted a lovely scene out of the window.
My view:
http://instagram.com/p/W88r4cFe1p/
At this point I was pretty far into my scotch filled haze, I decided to order another.
Glenfiddich 21:
Turned out my favorite was the Macallan, I was a bit sad that they didn’t have 25, but I believe that would be a huge firstworldproblem and beggers can’t be choosers when enjoying high end booze. Soon after my third scotch I was planning my next attack however against my better judgment my wife informed me that if I didn’t stop I would not be enjoying sharing a bed this evening in Munich. Sadly at this point our flight to Munich was ready for boarding more sadness continued downstairs when I noticed that we were being herded to the van with the 2 other passengers, sigh.
We were shuttled out to the plane that was at a gate, ushered past everyone and seated in LH regional C. I believe the plane was an A319, but being in state I was in, it could have been a horse and buggy. Oddly enough the flight time was something in the vicinity of 35-40 minutes and as soon I sat down the right side of my head met with the window and I had the best 15 minutes of sleep I have ever had. My nap came to an end however when the flight hit the runway and the engines roared to life and let me tell you about an alarm clock. I was going on my fourth of fifth wind at this point, I decided to have a coke lite (diet coke for us here in ‘merica). The flight was extremely quick and painless it went up and came back down. Once we landed we grabbed our luggage and ventured off to the s-bahn to get the Le Merdian. Not much to report on the hotel, we used a suite night award and got a corner room. Our room wasn’t ready at 5pm so we were given free drinks at the bar. I was still cut off according to my wife so I had a coke lite again. Our room was ready shortly after we finished our drinks, we dropped our bags and freshened up and then headed out to dinner. I decided on beer hall specifically the Augistiner Keller where more cured meats were ordered and more beer was consumed.
Cured Meat:
Beer:
We finished dinner and headed back to the hotel to grab some sleep before our flight to ICN the next day.