GMC in Europe 2008

I’m in Amsterdam as I write this…in an airport that Alison described as “one giant Ikea.” Euro-style is certainly different. It’s more humane, for one thing…the terminal in which we’re laying over has a whole section devoted to “comfort chairs.” They have foot rests and can recline, and you don’t need to be a member of an elite flying club to sit in them.

Our travel is going well. We departed from First Congregational Church in Cheshire promptly at 10 a.m., on board a bus that just needs wings to be fully competitive with an airliner. We met up with the rest of the chorale in Middletown, and then we were off to Boston.

We enjoyed a screening of the Mozart “rockumentary” Amadeus on the way, not to mention some great conversation. The time flew by quickly, and in fact we’ll need to watch the rest of the film on our return trip.

Logan Airport was strangely quiet when we arrived at mid-day. The international departures terminal doesn’t really get busy until mid-afternoon, as so many flights are scheduled for 4 p.m. and later. We were able to check everyone in, then folks scattered for the afternoon. Some took a shuttle to the Airport Hyatt so they could take a walk on the beach; others ventured to Terminal C (rumored to have better concessions–it doesn’t, because I was one of the venturers); still others simply checked in and enjoyed a quiet afternoon watching planes take off and land.

Our first wave flew out on Lufthansa shortly after 4 p.m. I was in the second wave that took a Northwest/KLH flight that departed at 7 p.m. We were able to watch our group taxi away and take off–everything at Logan is right out where you can see it.

The Airbus A-300 was a relatively comfortable wide-body jet. We were, of course, seated rearward in the eight-across rows, but it appeared our group had been assigned the outer pairs of seats, so we had windows and no awkward climbs to get to the aisle. It’s become standard practice for long-haul flights to provide seatback entertainment in lieu of the single big screen that used to be the norm. There was a long list of films, other programs, games, and so on, all operated by a hand controller at each seat. I found it most restful simply to follow the map that showed where our airplane was in space, and I snatched about three hours of sleep.

We met up with Rich and Ann–Ann’s original flight was cancelled, so she is making her connection to Vienna with us after all! I have always been fascinated by discovering familiar and unexpected faces in strange places, and here in Amsterdam is no exception. Any time a member of our group walks by it produces a pleasant little “startle” of recognition.

We fly out of here in about an hour from this posting on our hop to Vienna.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 5:04 am and is filed under Tour, Tour Entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.