Saturday, October 22nd.

A Ship Full of Tourists

Even though the flight was to depart only five to eight, the alarm went off at five sharp. This was the price to pay for leaving paying the bills, packing the bag and cleaning up the worst of the mess to the last possible moment. Even so, the operation became a bit hectic in the end. When I finally left home, dawn welcomed me with a distinct chill. About time to flee to warmer shores.

Two weeks before, Zurich’s airport was bustling on Saturday morning. But there were school holidays then. Now it is eerily quiet, almost ghostly. Still, the short flight to Frankfurt, feeding many connections to North America, is rather busy. It also is about ten minutes late, cutting into the already rather short connection time. I did want to fly with the earlier flight by Swiss, but Lufthansa insisted to price that a thousands Francs higher. If you have been transferred in Frankfurt from concourse A to C, including all the extra shenanigans the Americans insists on, you will agree that an hour is rather short.

Not deterred by that sort of thing, Lufthansa organized a direct transfer. They came up with this in Munich and are now using it in Frankfurt too. Here’s how it goes: An agent picks up all transferees at the jetway from the arriving flight, guides them to a bus already waiting. This bus then drives first to a special passport control point that has been set up for this very thing and then directly to the departure gate. Very quick and very convenient. Almost makes you book tight connections and hope for a delay.

When we arrived at gate C16, the boarding chaos was already in full swing. The flight was fully booked. Many people travelling together had to be split and placed all around the plane. There was much complaining and pleading and begging, but to no avail. A few stand-by passengers were hoping that someone’s passport would fall through as often happens on US flights.

Given all this, I was hoping to get moved upstairs of the A380, but it seems I have filled my upgrade quota. It didn’t really matter much, though, because my carefully chosen seat, 76K, was the best coach seat to be had: one row back from the emergency exit with the seat in front missing. Thus you have all the leg space you could possibly want but are not as exposed as in the first row, where lots of people gather to wait for their turn on the potty.

Seat 76K also has a wonderful view directly on the giant wing of the uber-Airbus. That may sound a tad sarcastic, but watching the wing gathering lift and slowly rising as the plane accelerates along the runway, is quite a marvellous sight. If you are into that kind of thing, of course.

This was also my first trip on the 380 and a few words may be in order. Downstairs she doesn’t feel much different from a 747, just newer. The biggest difference really is how quiet it is in flight. Must be even better upstairs. Ah, well. Maybe some other time.

There is a reason, why Lufthansa is flying their biggest ship to Miami: For whatever reason, Germans seem to like vacationing in Florida. I did forget about that during the planning phase and only was reminded on board the flight. Given that a German’s holiday normally is well planned, they had researched the perils of flight and so after half an hour’s flight, the first people showed up and did there little stretching exercises.

But all fun has to come to an end and so we touched down in Miami only half an hour after schedule. Having kept an eye on LH 462 for the last week or so, I wasn’t expecting anything else. It hasn’t been on time once.

After arrival I hurried to overtake all the vacationers to be early at immigration. The officer was quiet friendly for once, but he also grilled me for about ten minutes. Why is it so hard to believe that a bloke just wants to do a little road trip all by himself?

Originally I had planned to pick up the rental car Sunday morning, following the usual pattern. However, the flight arrived in Miami already around two in the afternoon. Instead of staying at the hotel or venturing into Miami itself by way of public transport (presumably a somewhat risky undertaking), I decided to give Avis a call and change the reservation. They did confirm the change and when I arrived at the counter they also found my reservation, but still didn’t have a car available. I had booked a standard size car (which would go as a really big car in Europe, or would have before the advent of the SUV). They did have a minivan, but really? Eventually, Avis kindly bit the bullet and handed me the keys to a shiny red Mustang.

The hotel was just across from the rental car centre, but American road design made me do a five mile circuit through the entire airport. That could have ended badly as I accidentally almost ran a red light right in front of a police cruiser. I came to a full stop somewhat half-way into the intersection, but the officer didn’t really seem to care.

After checking into the hotel, there was two things I had to do: get a map and get a dictaphone. The former because I may have lent my Michelin US atlas. Or maybe not. In any case, I couldn’t find it this morning. So I googled for a nearby book store as well as an electronics store and drove off through the Miami traffic. Which wasn’t so bad, but then, it was Saturday.

The book store was in an area that was dominated by jewellers and bridal shops. There was parking right outside, but it was to cost a quarter. This being the first day of the trip, I didn’t have any change, only three dollars in very small bills. But this is America, so there was a homeless man nearby who kindly agreed to change my dollar into a quarter.

The book store itself as a bit of a disaster. Currently under renovation, the travel section consisted of one shelf of books about Florida and one shelf of maps. Now, I don’t like maps on account of all the necessary folding and being extremely impractical when driving. But what can one do. The free map one gets from Avis (and even signs for) is a very American map, which is to say, rather useless. The Rand McNelly map I bough isn’t all that much better, but at least it shows side roads and such.

As opposed to that, the acquisition of the dictaphone went smoothly, except that the correct name of the device is digital voice recorder. They still sell analogue voice records with cassettes which struck me as slightly odd.

After that, I went back to the hotel. I toyed with the idea to find a good restaurant nearby or maybe just pick up some fast food along the way, but decided that the day after a long flight allows for relaxation of The Rules and went to the hotel restaurant.