Here we are again, at Portland International Airport, waiting for our flight to Vienna, via Vancouver B.C (eh?) and Munich. I put that “International” part in there because I think we are this week. With Portland, you can never be quite sure from week to week. The flights will total 18 hours of flying and layover time. This is to be followed by a two plus hour drive to beautiful Keszthely. Strangely, we are looking forward to this and can’t wait to get started.
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| Dave and Zia always look happy going on vacation! |
As usual, we met a familiar face to hang out with while
waiting for our flight at PDX. It has
become so much of a tradition now that we would be disappointed were it not to
happen. This year, we found Hannah M.,
the Columbia River High School Drum Major, who was on her way to Berkeley, CA
for a conference. We had time for a nice
chat before she had to dash off for her flight.
*****
Dear Laurelwood Brewing Company,
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| A $3.50 bottle of Laurelwood Brewing Company water. Times must be tight in the brewery business. |
Thank you for selling mineral water at the airport. We really enjoy it, so it is appreciated that
you carry it for us. A couple of things,
though:
1.
Seeing as we have all just cleared security, and
the requisite emptying of our pockets of everything, including bottle key rings
with bottle openers on them, don’t you think it would be a good idea to have
twist top bottles?
2.
If not, don’t you think it might be potentially
useful if the clerk had a bottle opener at the cash register?
3.
If not, don’t you think it might be useful to
tell said cashier where to find one, so that he doesn’t have to spend five
minutes looking for one?
And while we’re on the subject –
4.
Don’t you think $3.50 is a little steep for 16
ounces of soda water that can be bought at my local Safeway for less than a
buck?
Thanks awfully,
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| Z tells me that taking pictures of your feet at the airport is a thing. OK, so here.... |
Which, of course, brings me to my annual rant. I’ve been to the Laurelwood Pub on Sandy Boulevard
in Portland. I can guarantee you that
they don’t charge $3.50 for a pint of club soda there. So why the price gouging because we are
captives at the airport. It doesn’t
encourage me to visit their restaurant.
I like their beer, but I like lots of beer in Beervana. It becomes pretty easy to make other choices. So why do they do it? Why do they dis the very customer base that
they are trying to build? My thoughts,
because they can.
I have written my congress person about this and received no
response. Maybe if you join me in this,
we can see a change?
*****
Longtime readers of our blog know that I am a big fan of
Airplane TV on international flights. I
love the adventure of seeing how far we have traveled, and the esoteric and
sometimes strange names people give their hamlets. My favorite was always Godthåb, Greenland,
which the locals call “Nuuk.” I became
so fascinated by this place that I’ve even looked it up on Google Earth and
researched it online. It’s the capital,
you know, and the largest city in Greenland.
And it looks about like you would expect, if your expectation is that it
would look about like frontier Alaska.
The Airplane TV folks were pretty fascinated with the place,
too. It showed up on almost every map
except the really close detailed one – and most of those on the way to
Europe. Of course, that was the old
Airplane TV. Lufthansa has a new version
of Airplane TV, with 3D views of the plane, genuine simulated views from the
cockpit, this really weird thing where you fly into the plane from billions of
miles out in space. They have pretty
much done away with the “town view” map except for a little bit when you are
leaving and just before you land.
And evidently the good folks of the Visitors and Information
Bureau of Godthåb haven’t paid their bills to the new Airplane TV people. Sadly, I didn’t see them come up even once.
*****
We were entertained on the Munich-Vienna leg of our journey
by two good-natured but slightly dense Cal Poly students hitting on a couple of
stewardesses that were deadheading it to their digs in Vienna after having
worked our Vancouver flight. We learned
from this male brain trust, in no particular order:
·
That Lufthansa stewardesses get paid by the unit
for their trips (although the stewardess told him this first thing in their
conversation, it took him 5 minutes to put together that they got paid by the
unit).
·
That, although he was going to start student
teaching in the fall, he had “really no clue” what it entailed (ummm, maybe
teaching?)
·
That Cal Poly means, ummm Cal Poly (that would
be “California Polytechnic”)
·
A long involved conversation in which he assumed
that she was Catholic, although she repeatedly told him she was not
·
That Austria looks nothing like America (well,
probably not California – and as we all know, America is California)
·
Upon discovering that she had trained to be a
professional opera singer: “we don’t have that in the U.S.” (I’ll remember to tell that to my friends in
the Eugene Opera)
·
The “like” tax would, like, have run him, like,
thousands of, like, dollars, like.
·
A long involved conversation about native foods
of Austria, schnitzel, palatschinken (crepes), sausages, Kaiserschmarn and the
like, and ending with the brain trust asking, “Do you eat as much sauerkraut as
the Germans do?” (I hate to break it to you, friend, but the Germans don’t eat
that much of it either. And you should
have listened when she tried to explain the Kaiserschmarn, it’s pretty tasty – crepes
torn up with raisin-y goodness on top)
To make it through the program at Cal Poly they likely are
very book-smart. But they are pretty
naive at the whole life thing. It’s
probably a good thing they are getting out and seeing the world a bit.
And strangely, neither one of them got a phone number.
*****
We were met at the Flughafen Wien by András and Péter and
whisked away to Keszthely (if being “whisked away” involves a two and ½ hour
car ride), where chilled pálinka and pogácsa awaited, followed by dinner (roasted
duck with stuffing, fried squash and roasted sweet potato) and a flat place
where we could put our feet up and call it a day. A happy place, indeed!
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