FlyerTalk Forums - Axis of Weasel Tour, 2003

It was my duty as an American to visit those countries that we hate and convince them that our way was the true way. I’ve been watching way too much Fox News Channel.

Actually, Wendolene needed to return to Germany for some family business, and I came along for moral support. I made sure we routed the trip through Paris, Freedom, so we would hit a second member of the Coalition of the Unwilling. Russia would have to wait.

We were actually on three separate itineraries, mainly due to poor planning. Only at the last minute we decided to fly to Hanover from Frankfurt, instead of taking the train or driving.

So the route was:
Delta from San Francisco to Cincinnati, and then on to Frankurt. (First and Business Elite, on mileage upgrades).
Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Hanover (paid Business).
Regional (Air France partner) to Paris (on a Delta code)
Air France, (Delta coded), Paris to Los Angeles, Business (mileage upgrade).
Southwest, LAX-San Jose, full fare.

The 757 SFO-CVG was offering to sell its last three first class seats. Coach was over half empty. There was a humble meal, which is pretty good these days. The snack basket had both pretzels and those little mint sheets you put on your tongue so your breath doesn’t smell. I took a few for the long trip.

The flight was on time. We had a choice of the Business Class lounge or the Red Carpet Club, and selected the former. Some snacks were out, and I connected and got some e-mail during the short layover.

It was a 777 from CVG-FRA, which is truly an excellent plane as long as you’re not in coach, which we weren’t. We had seats 5A & 5B (the same seat numbers as the first flight), which were the last row in the first cabin. The flight was delayed as someone didn’t show up, but their luggage did (ever wonder what the story is with these people? Do they fall in love with Covington, Kentucky and decide to stay, even without their luggage?).

It was a nice, smooth flight. The food was pretty good, Delta has improved from a few years back. The seat had the personal video screen, but I only watched the moving map. The seat also had the empower adapter, so Wendolene charged her laptop, which in turn was charging her Clie’ through a USB cable, so she could continue to play Bedazzled.

As usual, I didn’t sleep too much. We arrived in Frankfurt about an hour late, which was fine, since we had a 4 hour layover, anyway. We had checked our luggage through to Hanover, but needed to check in with Lufthansa. It took quite a while to find the check in desk.

My next mission was to find a prepaid SIM card for my new, unlocked GSM phone I ordered on Yahoo. Wendolene has a T-Mobil US phone, so she was set, but we wanted a local German number, since most of our calls would be coming and going from Germany. It took a while, but I found a “Call Ya” kit from Vodaphone for 40 Euros. I was told I could recharge the phone by buying a cash card.

Since we were flying Business Class, we sought out the Lufthansa BC lounge. In the course of my travels through the airport, I managed to get my passport stamped three times. They love to stamp things in Germany, apparently – in over 30 trips to Switzerland, I never got a stamp, now I had three in under an hour.

FRA-HAJ was on a packed 737. Wendolene has an aisle seat, I had a window, and a fat German guy has the center seat. Nice job with business class! (We had to buy C since we were going one-way on short notice – on board intra-European flights, there is rarely any perk for sitting up front other than a slightly better sandwich). Of course, there was a sandwich for this 40 minute flight.

Meeting us at the airport was Wendolene’s father, her brother Martin, Martin’s daughters (14 & 13) Tatyana and Tamara, and their Polish Hunting Dog named “Goofy”.

We had rented an “E” class car with Avis. Since Wendolene was along, I didn’t have to rent an automatic – long time fans of my trip reports know I never have, and never will, drive a car with a manual transmission. This is due to my deep seated principles, and the fact I never learned how.

The whole entourage entered the Avis office. Much conversation in German ensued. As best as I could make out, Avis had set aside an Audi 2-seater. It was decided a bigger car was appropriate (not everyone was going to ride in our car, but we did need to take a passenger or two once in a while). After 10 minutes, a big Mercedes appeared. A big manual transmission Mercedes (can’t people who buy big Mercedes afford an automatic?). I have no idea what model it was, they don’t put the model name on the car. It was fancy.

German-trained driver Wendolene sat behind the wheel. She futilely searched for the hand brake. We were sitting in front of the Avis office—they had left the car in the driveway at it was blocking traffic. Someone from Avis came over and showed her where the brake was. She was fine until a few hours later, when she tried to put the car in reverse and couldn’t figure that out either. I stored the incidents away for future use.

We were staying at the Jagerhof in Langehagen. It was a nice hotel that was very empty. Apparently, the front desk is manned only at certain hours.

The whole family came up to see the room. It was very large by European standards.

Even thought we’ve been married over 10 years, I haven’t spent much time with Wendolene’s family. I was a bit nervous, so I sometimes made stuff up. When one of the girls asked how we met, I told her that Wendolene was a contestant or a reality dating show, and that she had to choose from 20 masked millionaires, and she picked me. The joke was, of course, I wasn’t really a millionaire and it wasn’t really a mask. The girl was confused, and decided she needed to study more English.

We were there for a little over a week. On Sunday, Wendolene’s sister and her 3 kids showed up. The kids wanted to go to an “American” restaurant – it was call “Ding” (translates to “The Thing”, I think). It was weird. One very strange thing is that they put out what looked like pickle relish and chili sauce on the table, and brought a basket of hot sliced bread, which everyone dipped in the relish and sauces, like it was chips and salsa. Bizarre.

The other strange thing was that Goofy was welcomed at all restaurants and coffee shops. They would bring a bowl of water, the dog would have some, then collapse on the floor like a rug. Several times, I thought the dog had died. “Goofy sleeps”, explained Martin.

The trip home started wit the 6:45 AM flight to Paris on a regional jet. We had to check out of the hotel the day before, in the morning (since it was May Day), since no one manned the desk that early. Even the Avis office was closed, so we left the car and dropped off the keys.

We had a 5 hour layover in Paris, so we hung out at the Air France business lounge. Boarding was chaotic (as usual). It turns out the 747 was very lightly filled. Business class downstairs had about 10 passengers. Coach was over half empty. We had picked the LAX flight, since it was impossible to upgrade the SFO flight. Our original flight (3 hours earlier on a 777) had been consolidated weeks earlier, which is why we had the long layover.

The flight was smooth. Legendary Air France hater Wendolene was even impressed. The food was great, as always, starting with the foie gras appetizer.

We watched “Catch Me if You Can” on the video screen, using the planes noise canceling headphones.

For the pre-landing dinner, I selected the beef. It turned out very, very rare (as in pretty much uncooked). I ate around the edges, and wasn’t really all that hungry, so I didn’t complain. When the Flight attendant collected my meal, he had a very upset conversation with another FA (in French) about the beef and how it was undercooked. The French take food very serioulsly.

LAX immigration was a bit of a mess, but we collected our luggage and shlepped it down to the Southwest Terminal. We checked, they bombarded our luggage with ionizing radiation, and we went to the gate to line up like lemmings with everyone else. The second the last passenger exited the landing plane, the fresh meat boarded, and we were in the air minutes later. This is why the only airline stock I own is LUV.

By the way, nothing seems to have changed in Germany regarding Americans. The kids still wear Yankee caps, try to dress like Americans, etc. They do think Bush is a madman, but they thought the same thing when he was elected. And the whole “Freedom Fries” business is quite embarrassing, we took a bit of kidding over that.

More Trip reports may be found at:

http://home.pacbell.net/opus17