Arrival into Hamburg
Trip Start
May 08, 2009
1
4
9
Trip End
May 13, 2009
Hamburg,
Germany
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Anyway, I was a little peeved that they boarded the plane, only to sit there for another hour. That just sounds like something United would do, and hey, I'm on LH! Worse yet, the sun had finally come out in London, and it was rather hot inside. I was lucky, however, and had a two seater to myself. So I pulled out my United pillow, took off my shoes, and curled up to sleep. The flight attendant saw me doing this, and pulled an LH pillow out of the bin and handed it to me. How nice! A few minutes later I was awoken to the same FA covering me up with a blanket! Now this is really too much! I was in shock! I absolutely cannot imagine a United Express (such as Mesa!) RJ even having a blanket or a pillow on board, let alone an FA giving a crap about a pax. So now that I was all snugged up, I slept some more until it was time to take off. Oh, and the FA's were also offering pre-departure water to everyone, not just the silly little Business 'cabin' which consisted of the first 4 rows, kind of like ex-plus, but without any (or much) extra legroom.
Once in the air, the service began. Yes, this is a one hour RJ flight, but the service came close to rivaling the service on United's TATL the night before! Seriously! First, they came through with the snack. It was a chicken or cheese mini-sandwich and a muslix candy bar. Interestingly, the chicken sandwich came with cheese, which made me wonder if the cheese sandwich came with chicken... Then came the drinks. I got an OJ. The flight attendant looked at me and said, 'is that all'? I'm like, 'uh', I think. She's like, how about some coffee or tea. So I took some tea as well. Apparently, the fact that they are pouring beers for free means it's bad etiquette to only drink OJ! So yes, United charges for booze on a 6 hour TATL flight, while LH serves free booze on a 1 hour TCHAN (get it? Trans-channel-- I just made that up!) flight. Brilliant. If this is the level of service on an 1 hour RJ flight, I can only imagine what LH does on a real flight. Wow.
Despite our ground hold, we still had to fly a holding pattern which had us all over the German countryside. It was rather interesting. Lots of big ships on the Elbe. And I could see the North Sea. Then we landed, and apparently HAM is not that big of airport, as the RJ's just pull up on the tarmac and park. You then deplane to a shuttle, sort of like happens at DCA a fair amount. The shuttle took us straight to immigration, which was a breeze considering the small numbers on this flight. I then found, in order, a WC, the subway, an ATM, and a payphone. For about the first time in my life, I managed to get a foreign payphone to dial properly, and managed to call Hauke's room Sebastian to let him know I was on my way.
Within an hour of landing, I had transited three lines of the subway (which isn't actually below ground much!) and was in the apartment. Super convenient. From the limited views I got from the train, Hamburg is a very nice looking city. Lots of trees, lots of green, very clean. It almost felt like Singapore! And the entire subway operates on the honor system -- there are no gates or turnstiles, you just buy a ticket (or not!) and get on. Apparently they do random checks, and can bust you for not having a ticket. Pretty amazing! The stupid MBTA in Boston can't even keep the scoffaws from jumping over the gates and riding for free -- imagine if there were no gates!
Sebastian showed me to the extra room, got me all setup with keys and internet, and then took off. I found a store to get some breakfast supplies (I might be on the continent, but that doesn't mean I have to eat a continental breakfast!) and then had a kebap for dinner. It seemed to be an overgrown pita pocket or something like that. Very very good.
