Friday, December 14, 2007

Here at San Francisco Airport

Finally got T-Mobile hot spot up and working. First leg of trip uneventful.

Flight was AirBus 319. Probably what I fly most on United for the coast to coast hops. The movie was Stardust, and was particularly sleep inspiring. After that I did some Christmas cards (plan is to post them in Australia...hope they make it to their destinations in time, but it will be fun anyway!)

I appear to have a small technology problem. My battery on my laptop lasted about 20 minutes. The plane was not configured with auxiliary power and so my blogging word document was pitifully short. Off to find one of the many geek shops in the airport to see if there's a possibility of another...probably not, but worth trying to find out.

Arrived in about 3:07 PM... for those of you who care, we came in on runway "28 Right". I noticed it because I was listening to cockpit communications, and vaguely heard them call us out to 28 Left and get acknowledged, and then a few seconds later the tower said, actually you need to be on 28 Right.

Next leg is 863 departing at 22:24 PST out of the international terminal G-- and its a 747-400. For that I'll be banking another 7,412 miles. It arrives on SUNDAY at 7:50 AM Sydney time.

Sat next to a nice older retired couple that were going to visit the kids and the grandkids. They said they had flown over 4 Million miles on United (each)--and that even in retirement, they keep their 1K status! Heavens! When I asked them what they did they had a vague answer about oceanography--and then disengaged in further discussion... hmmmm.... wonder what they really did/do?

As for Tyler's thought about whether TSA or others will start to become interested... well, I'll let you know. I did decide to fly "nice". I brought no jeans, no jean jackets, no sneakers, and came with all my makeup! My normal flying routine is to change at the airport into my comfiest jeans and shirt... but my dress black pants are quite comfortable, and make me look professional.... (professional what, we'll figure that out later....). and paired with black silk/cotton turtlenecks... pretty much all the way through. FYI to Kelly... I did bring Mom's nice light weight grey/green outer jacket and have her "gardening" pin. Oh well, enough for the fashion sense!

That's it for now... off to look for the geek shops!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok so note to self, dont reply to blog after 4 glasses of wine...

But. Paula you are doing great: this is exactly what we need to hear. I have flown all over the world, and on many airlines... but have NEVER flown on a 747. it is one of my great desires...along with julia Roberts. But I digress. The 747 is the most elegant simple airplane ever designed. And its engineering marvel is its cross section when looking at it head on. I remember being able to see it head on at Heathrow through a window where it had "nosed in" and thinking as a pilot how incredible it was. So I jealously await your review. I picture myself, doing my best Bogart impression, holding court in the upper deck lounge tasting great wines and illuminating pallettes while crossing time zones and regailing stories. but thats me....

Anonymous said...

This sounds like so much fun... maybe it's just the way you're journalizing it hehe... sitting in airports never made me too happy - esp. with TSA mulling over their Xray machines wondering just what they can do to glean more power from the situation. *shrug* I'll keep an eye on the blog and follow along!

-Web