Almost home. And still going strong.

Ahhh, the beauty of being able get my connectivity fix thanks to using 3G on my mobile-phone again! No more hunting for wireless networks just to check my e-mails or do some quick blogging. Right now I'm using my Nokia 6120 as a tethered modem and it works much better than when I last tried it in early January. (Note to all those iPhone 3G owners: Haha, it works out of the box without any hacking whatsoever!:-P)

Anyway, the flights were pretty unremarkable except for the stop-over in Paris CDG which I'll rant about at a later date. Was very happy to get out of Washington IAD because the queues in front of the Lufthansa counter were pretty long and everything took much more than time than expected. It was a good decision to be at the airport 2 1/2 hours before the departure time, by the time I got to the gate I had little time to spare.

Now I'm looking forward to this train moving out of Vienna's main-station so I can complete the final leg of my journey. It will be good to be home and it will be great to have that first sip of cold beer!

By the way, my counter jet lag efforts seems to have paid off, I only got 2 hours of sleep on the way to Paris and even though my internal clock tells me that it's 5:30 a.m. I'm still going strong. Let's see how the afternoon and evening turns out...

All in all: Home Sweet Home! :-)

Countering jet lag

I thought I'd be smart about jet lag this time 'round by trying my best to counter it. Especially since my flight schedule from DC to Munich is quite messed up: I fly out at 3:20 p.m. and arrive at 5-something a.m. By the time I get home it will be closer to 10 ~ 11 a.m. and then I still have a full day ahead of me. Talk about a long day!

So my idea was to try and get up early today, tomorrow and on Friday, therefore enabling me to at least grab two or three hours of sleep during the flight which could ease me into good ol' GMT+2. But since it's past 1 p.m. and I just got up after almost 12 hours of relaxing and badly needed sleep I'm not sure whether that's really going to happen... :-/

Thank you Delta Air Lines

Remember, there used to be a time when flying was an efficient and convenient way to get from point A to point B. Well, not anymore. These days flying is just a pain in the rear.

Example: At this moment I'm stuck here at SFO with more than an hour delay already. Plus when I arrived at the airport I learned that my flight from New York to Boston (nope, no direct flight for me tonight) was overbooked. Well, now that I'm very likely going to miss it that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

The overall result is going to be that I won't be in Boston by 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, my layover at JFK isn't going to be a convenient 45 minutes and I will be very irritated and exhausted by the time I finally get to my destination. Ahhhh, the beauty of traveling. Thank you Delta Air Lines!

As least my friend Samuel (Adams) is here with me during these dark and difficult hours...

By the way, in case you're wondering: No there's no free WiFi here at SFO, I got a 24h T-Mobile pass for $9.99. I figure if I'll be stuck here for some time and also at JFK for an hour or two I might as well treat myself with some connectivity.

The one where I almost missed my flight

"E6 is the seat, not the gate" - this thought sent a shot of adrenaline through my body at 3:40 p.m. today. Because that's when I realized that I was supposed to be at gate E1, not E6, for my 3:42 p.m. flight to San Francisco. I guess that kind of thing happens when you're busy catching up with your e-mail (thanks to the free Wifi at Portland International Airport) and at the same time desperately scrambling to find an affordable accommodation in San Francisco on short notice.

Anyway, I packed up my laptop and started running, almost losing my boarding pass in the process. Sprinting along the E gates I see that the E1 waiting area is empty already except for one employee who looks like she is about to close the gate. In what seems like slow-motion to me I run towards her, frantically waving my arms. Breathless I arrive at the hate, only being able to nod my head when she says "You must be Christoph". The flight attendant waiting at the door of the plane also greets me with "I was about to start looking for you!". Literally seconds after I board the plane the doors are closed and we start moving towards the runway.

That was a close one!