Friday, August 19, 2011
I happen to like CDG; it is a fascinating airport—one sees many airlines there he would not see in North America, such as the Lebanese flag carrier MEA and Air Algerie, to name two. The one thing I don’t like is having to reclear security to reach a connecting flight, particularly, as on this trip, when I didn’t have access to my checked bag. Even though AF has an “Acces 1” line for J class travelers, security requires one to remove all of his electronics from the carry on and place them in a tray for xray inspection. So, I had to pull my netbook, I-pod, Bose headphones, smartphone, camera and transistor radio out of the backpack, and then repack all of this stuff at the other end of the magnetometer. Somehow I managed not to set off the magnetometer (which I had done a year ago by not taking off my belt, leading to a robust pat down), got repacked, and headed for the AF lounge, which is just a short walk from security by two left turns and down a staircase (or elevator).
There was a male AF employee acting as a “maître d’” in addition to two concierges at the desk, and he recognized my J boarding pass and quickly admitted me with a smile. I had about 25 minutes before needing to leave for A21, a bus gate accessed by an escalator from the main level of 2E, for AF5050, the flight to EDI on AF’s short haul partner, Ireland-based CityJet.
The bus ride out to the aircraft took at least 15 minutes, as the bus circumnavigated a new midfield terminal which appears to be at least 80% completed (the people mover that connects 2E to an existing midfield building housing gates E51-E76 will continue on to this new building). CityJet flies the AVRO RJ85, the aircraft with two engines underneath each wing. The first three rows of this aircraft were reserved for J class, although there was no partition or curtain between J and Y. I sat in 1A; 1C was unassigned (there were only 2 seats in this row). The bulkhead was closer in row 1 than it was in row 2 DEF.
There was a breakfast service for the business rows. I was presented with a tray including a thin ham slice, some scrambled eggs, a cherry tomato, a roll, a portion of "fromage frais", served with a cup of tea. They made a second beverage run, but when I asked for a club soda, they told me they were only doing coffee or tea.
Flying time was 1 hour 40 minutes; we were scheduled to depart at 0715 CET and to land at 0820 BST. We took off to the west from the runway nearest to CDG Terminal 1; the cloud cover dissipated just as the southeasternmost point on the island of Britain came into view, with the white cliffs of Dover visible to the west of that point. Our flight took us over the eastern suburbs of London; the distinctive cable-stay Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford was out my window. About 25 minutes later we flew over Sheffield, as I could see Bramall Lane (Sheffield United) and Hillsborough (Sheffield Wednesday) stadiums below.
A few minutes later, I got a geography lesson, as the Solway Firth, on the west coast of Britain, the boundary between England and Scotland came into view northwest of Carlisle. I didn’t realize it then, only after looking at a map, that Carlisle is just east of due south of Edinburgh. We must have passed near Gretna and Lockerbie, the first two towns on the rail line between Carlisle and Glasgow, as we started our descent into the Scottish capital. Musselburgh race course and Easter Road, the home of Hibernian F.C., came into view off the left side of the AVRO as we flew up to the Firth of Forth; with the famous road and rail bridges off to the right, we made a smooth landing on runway 24 and reached the terminal building on schedule.
I was supposed to have reached Edinburgh the day before, as my plan was to attend the Europa League soccer playoff game between Celtic and Swiss side F.C. Sion on Thursday 18 August; I ended up having an unavoidable meeting on Thursday—fortunately for me, the Delta Diamond Desk fixed my reservation to change the dates of my travel without penalty, as I had non-refundable air and hotel for my travel in eastern Europe.
Handing in my UK Border Agency landing card to the immigration officer inside EDI, I was met with a bit of disbelief; after all, who in their right mind books a trip from Washington to Helsinki via Paris and Edinburgh. I explained that I was supposed to have been there the day before, and I had a non-refundable ticket on Blue 1 to HEL. It turned out that he was a Celtic supporter, and I must have said the right code words to him, as we then commiserated on the dour 0-0 draw fought out in front of over 51,000 at Celtic Park in Glasgow without either of us in attendance. He then poked fun at his grim faced partner, who was a Rangers supporter, and waved me through. My Hartmann roll-a-board, my gift from Delta for 2 million miler status, joined me after about 10 minutes, and I was through the green lane and out the front door, where the very nice Airlink (bus 100) double decker bus with limited stops was waiting.
A friendly female staffer of the bus line actually walked up to me with a portable ticket printer in hand, asked me what kind of a ticket I wanted; I took the round trip priced at £6, and reached the street outside Waverley railway station at about 0915, 30 minutes from the airport.
There are four separate “hop-on, hop-off” tour bus services in Edinburgh. I got on the red “City Sightseeing” bus, which offered a recorded narration in several languages through headphones. I wished that I had gotten on the green and white Edinburgh Tour bus, which features a live narration by a tour guide. Both cost the same, £12. I had two main objectives for the day; one was to take a tour of the Scottish Parliament; the other was to make it out to the Forth bridges, which are real landmarks. I was also on the lookout for a store to buy a replacement power cord and a replacement battery charger.
The Scottish Parliament is at the bottom of the Royal Mile, east of the center of Edinburgh, and across the street from the Holyrood Palace, the Queen’s official residence in Scotland. It is a modern building, opened within the past 8 years or so, and while not having the majesty or ornateness of state capitol buildings in the USA, it has a very friendly staff (including the security guards at the entranceway magnetometer ) who are very proud of Scotland and proud of its parliament. When in session, the Scottish Parliament consists of 129 members, the leader of which is known as the First Minister (currently Alex Salmond). I was told that the concept of the building was to resemble a tree with branches. If you are interested in governmental institutions generally, you will enjoy your visit here.
Back on the bus, now on the second lap through Edinburgh, I found a computer gadget store in close proximity to a well known watering hole, “The Grayfriars Bobby”, named after the famous Skye Terrier who guarded his master’s grave for 14 years until his own demise. I was able to get a universal cord with several attachments, one of which fit my Dell machine, and I was back in business—which was actually a curse, as I didn’t have an excuse for an angry client who was jealous that I was in Edinburgh and he wasn’t—I’ve worked for this particular individual for over 30 years, and I wasn’t going to turn him down. The amazing thing about computers and on-line databases is that I could go to a spot in Waverley station next to a Costa coffee shop, get some wifi and a mocha with whipped cream, and start researching the WESTLAW on-line Code of Federal Regulations database in order to answer a question for a client. By 1500, I was through working, and bought a £5 round-trip train ticket to North Queensferry, about 20 minutes away on the north side of the Firth of Forth, so that I could ride across the Forth Rail Bridge and then take pictures of it and the adjacent suspension highway bridge.
The rail bridge was opened in 1890, and consists of three cantilever structures roughly diamond shaped, supporting two cantilever spans of 1710 feet each—a total distance according to Wikipedia of 2.528 km (about 1.6 miles). The road bridge was opened in 1964, and features a suspension span with two towers somewhat reminiscent of the suspension towers on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. According to Wikipedia, the suspension span is 1006 meters (3,298 feet) , which puts it between the Bay Bridge suspension spans (at about 2,300 feet) and the Golden Gate Bridge span (4,200 feet), and just short of the George Washington Bridge span (at 3,500 feet) and Mackinac Bridge span (at 3,800 feet). The Firth Road Bridge’s suspension span is twice as long as the suspension spans of the twin Chesapeake Bay Bridges east of Annapolis, which are only 1,600 feet from tower to tower (even though the total length of the bridge is about 4.6 miles).
The vertical drop from the North Queensferry rail platforms into the town of North Queensferry and the north shore of the Firth of Forth was at least 150 feet. The walk back up the hill to the train put a real hurting on my hips and calves. However, the pictures I took were worth the pain. Returning to central Edinburgh, I was able to finish my shopping, as I found the Celtic merchandise store on 34 Frederick Street and bought a soccer ball for my grandson; and then found a Jessop’s camera shop and was able to buy a battery charger.
Pictures from my day in and about Scotland's capital city are found here:
http://pangborn76.smugmug.com/Other/...140322_6gM7gSV
Finding the westbound Airlink bus stop, I hopped aboard, but had to stand most of the way back to EDI, as the bus is used by commuters who live along the road to the airport. Edinburgh is constructing a light rail system, which someday will connect the airport with Princes Street, but which is having significant cost overruns and significant construction delays; it looks like the bus will be around for a while longer. I got back to EDI just after 1800, in plenty of time to check in with the SAS-owned LCC Blue 1 for its Friday night flight to Vantaa airport outside Helsinki.
Blue 1 flies twice weekly EDI-HEL. Not having status with the Star Alliance, I had to wait in the regular line for 15 minutes or so until my turn came. Check in was easy; the relatively cheap one way price for this run of approximately 1,700 km/1,050 miles (£139=US$227.27) included one checked bag. The flight on an B717 turned out to be slightly more than ½ full, and I scored a row of three to myself near the back. Although there seemed to be a decent number of departing passengers on various airlines at that hour, security was a breeze, with only two people in front of me when I joined the queue; I only had to take my laptop out of the backpack, and did not have to take my shoes off.
I made a beeline for the Servisair Edinburgh Lounge near gate 5, where I thought my Skyteam E+ status would get me in, particularly as I had flown in on an Air France affiliate the same day. Unhappily, I was denied admittance, as the lounge matron ruled that I had to be on a Skyteam airline departing EDI to be able to use the lounge. As I had a decent amount of UK coinage burning a hole in my pocket, I found a Wetherspoon pub at the other end of the terminal, where they had pints of a microbrew cider from Cornwall for £2.49 each, which were low on carbonation but high on flavor. The inbound B717 from HEL was about 15 minutes late, but it did touch down at dusk, and I drank up and headed for the gate.
Boarding for KF562 commenced immediately after the last passenger from the inbound segment had deplaned, and was done the old fashioned way, with those sitting in the last 7 rows invited to board first. Unhappily, a faux velvet rope was strung across the jetway near the boarding door, and we were stuck in the loading bridge for several minutes until the crew decided to let us on. Otherwise, the passengers took their seats quickly, the door closed, and after a quick taxi we were in the sky just prior to 2100. Announcements were made in Finnish, Swedish and English; the estimated travel time was 2 hours 20 minutes (the schedule called for arrival at 0105 EET, 2 hours ahead of BST).
As I don't fly Airtran, I had never been on a post-McDonnell Douglas 717, so this was a "first" for me.
The flight attendants consisted of two males and one female. I had no contact with the female FA who worked the front of the aircraft. With respect to the two males, one was creepy and the other was hostile. The creepy guy walked up and down the aircraft like a poor imitation of Kommandant Klink from Hogan’s Heroes, bent over at the waist, one arm behind his back, staring pruriently at each person’s crotch pretextually for a seatbelt check (the only thing missing was the monocle). The other dude just about flew off the handle when he saw that I had raised the center armrests in my row prior to takeoff. In 40 years of flying on my own I have never had one FA make any comment to me about the position of the center arm rests at any time during the flight. After wheels were up, I put the armrests up again, positioned my neck pillow and laid down to take a nap. About midway through the flight we hit some rough air, and the captain put the seatbelt sign on. I didn’t move fast enough to sit up and reattach my seat belt; the hostile FA came along and gave me three sharp and vindictive pokes to the ribs to make me sit up. In the USA, this would have been simple assault. I’m not sure about this, but I surmised that Blue 1 is a Ryanair type operation in that all onboard drinks and snacks are charged for. I was neither hungry nor thirsty en route and didn’t need anything, and was glad of it. On approach to HEL, the nasty FA came around and gave me more grief for not having returned the armrests to their horizontal position. Why he had such a jones for the armrests is anyone's guess.
The plane was clean and the seat cushions were comfortable, but I wouldn’t fly Blue1 again.
We landed shortly after 0100 local time, quite a bit earlier than originally indicated. Blue1 apparently does not use loading bridges at HEL, as we parked at a spot on the tarmac and were bussed to the terminal building. I was one of the last persons off the plane, but was able to get a position to be the first off the bus and first in line at immigration.
To complete this efficient but bizarre travel leg, I encountered perhaps the least friendly immigration officer I’ve ever seen away from the USA-Canada border. I greeted him courteously and with a smile; he asked me what the purpose of my trip was, and I explained my goal was to do a country a day, spending Saturday in Finland, then taking the high speed ferry to Estonia on Sunday morning. He asked about my profession, and somehow he just didn’t believe that I was a tourist with a short amount of time to try to see a lot of things. He then demanded to see my airline itinerary, which I had at the ready and handed to him. He told me “we just want to make sure you’ll be leaving Europe next week”. He stamped my passport without welcoming me to Finland. He then pushed a button which released the steel bars that blocked me from walking past his stand and into the passenger concourse.
At HEL, after leaving immigration one has to walk the length of the passenger concourse at the T1 building, then downstairs to baggage claim. I had booked the Sokos Hotel Vantaa, which was 7 km away next to the Tikkurila (Dickursby) railway station, served by an all night bus, #61. My bag reached me at 0134; I looked up at a monitor and saw that the next 61 bus was to depart at 0138. I ran outside, and, lo and behold, the bus was driving up to a stop outside the terminal. Fantastic timing for once. Not knowing much Finnish, I spoke English to the bus driver, and he responded in German. I have a few words of high school German, two of which are “Wie viel?”, and he responded “zwei funfzig”. Fortunately I had some Euro on me, and he made change, and we drove off into the Finnish night at 60 degrees 19 minutes north of the Equator (in North American terms, just south of Whitehorse, Yukon).
Figuring we’d get to the hotel in 7 or 8 minutes, I started to worry as the bus kept on driving through birch forests and anonymous commercial districts. Finally, after 18 minutes, the hotel was right in front of us, as was the station. I received my first friendly greeting in Finland by the female night auditor on the stroke of 0200. A disco was taking place in the hotel’s second floor nightclub, and a bouncer was preventing some young guys from entering the building (although he stepped aside to let me enter). Fortunately for me, I got a quiet room on the 5th floor. Time for some blessed sleep.