Sunny blue skies and perfect temperatures here, the Corvette was in good shape, as well. Of course I was going to fast, got pulled over, but still made it on time to see Bodyworlds 3 at the Science Center.
Flight was uneventful, no service because of expected turbulences, but not actually any major shaking. Lots of PAX were already rather drunk after spending over four hour in the lounge. One obviously drunk man got a warning from the lounge warden to keep quite downstairs otherwise he'd be stuck in STR for tonight. After we landed in FRA we had to wait a few minutes for airstairs to arrive and the drunk Pax started shouting awful things at the FAs
Got a car pickup and at the A arrivals a PA with a new BP for today and a voucher for the Sheraton was already waiting for me. Had to go to the F check-in to rebook my flight because the first one would have been a little too early and not let me sleep very much. IT problems were striking again and the rebooking took over 15 minutes and only completed after the agent reverted to the old LH check-in system.
FRA had a major mess too, tons of stranded PAX. The sheraton even opened the SPG line for regular pax with another longer line just for LH rebooked PAX. TG seems to have cancelled a flight as well as there were signs to a "TG layover dinner" room in the Sheraton.
Apparently lots of Longhaul flights destined for FRA diverted to other airports and only arrived late at night. FRA was still quite busy around 23:30.
Great weather here as well. Since monitor and Franny shrugged off my invitation for terrace-dinner for yesterday night (they plead work overload in DC as an excuse) I had to follow four fresh french colleagues in Didier Virot's new restaurant in downtown Manhattan. Those poor guys, they've been here for about 6 months now and they have only visited french restaurants, tsk-tsk They claim that "young" french chefs in the US tend to be more creative, less conservative and learn faster than their counterparts in France. Whatever...
The truth is that the (less experienced) French mistakenly perceive the american pragmatistic approach to life/politics/food/younameit, as less baroque, liberated from the bells and whistles of (the boring) tradition, relating to minimalism and consequently more stylish! And the star (chef) system works perfectly in the US. Because in their turn, Americans behave as if they believe that all french people somehow possess of a special gene which magically/automatically renders the person more stylish, posh, helps develop a nose for wine and a taste for foie! So, the whole thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
Of course, there are also non-french (star) chefs starting their career with an obvious handicap: they have the midwest accent instead of the french one But they always have the option to work harder! On their accent, that is... And if absolutely necessary, they can always invoke that distant french ancestor in the family tree from the war of independence era, as a proof for their talent.
__________________ Che cosa faccio? Scrivo. E come vivo? Vivo!
Programs: DL PM, CO GE/MM, SPG Plat, MT Plat, etc., etc.
Posts: 9,633
The weather has been great all up and down the Northeast corridor and yesterday's in the DC area definitely has a place in anybody's compilation of the 10 best days of the year.
Sorry that we could not join andre1970 in his expedition to sample the work of Didier Virot. We ended up with some overcooked halibut in a new restaurant in Northern Virginia that the server boasted proudly was the offshoot of a Chicago operation. The third time that he declaimed on that subject, I found it necessary to inform him that the fish would have been somewhat better if it had been given less fire and implied that maybe Chicago was not the center of the culinary universe.
Franny says that she regrets the evening and wishes that she could have been in NY having dinner with andre1970. There will be a next time.
Except for LH and OS of course. Didn't manage to a single seatblock in Y working over the last weeks as the flights were mostly full and if there were a few free seats they weren't next to me. Same problem with OS C (at least you have a guaranteed free seat on LH in C..)
NAT traffic down? Every plane across the pond is full of tourists on shopping trips... I was in NYC and Miami in the past few weeks and the place is buzzing with european shoppers... Last thursday/friday every third person in ORD was european
