Hullo from Copenhagen Denmark.
In the next six weeks I'll be doing my journals in here, hopefully more fishing than travelling ones. It's 3:00am over here and I am absolutely jet lagged this time because I had no sleep during the flight yesterday. The flight from Vancouver to Frankfurt was smooth until 10:30am Frankfurt time (or 2:30am Friday Vancouver time), I'll get to that in a minute.
The weather here is amazing so far. It is quite warm and looks rather different to the dull winter. Sunset is at around 9:30pm right now but in a few weeks we should get at least another hour of daily.
First flight on a A340-600So since Lufthansa introduced the airbus 340-600 on their fleet, I've always wanted to try it out. It is supposed to be smoother, quieter and more fuel efficient. At 75 meters, currently it is the longest commercial jet in the world.
I was pretty excited yesterday as I was taking my first flight on it. Overall I was not more impressed than disappointed.
There were not many cons, but I thought one entrance for loading and unloading passengers was rather rediculous. Because the plane holds up to 350 people, it took a loooong time to get all of us in.
The washrooms inside are located downstairs on the same level as the cargo space. That's nicer as you do not have to put up the smell after eating.
But again, the stairway entrance area was narrow, so it was rather congested most of the time. The washrooms are, twice as big as the old ones, so you do not have to practice yoga while doing your thing.
The take-off was awesome, smoother and quieter indeed as Airbus claims.
This time I was fortunate enough to sit on the first row of the economy class, which is just behind the luxurious business class.
Throughout the flight, people kept coming up and peeked through the blanket to see the seats in front of me. I later on found out that members of the band Nickelback were sitting a couple of rows in front of me.
I sat next to a girl from Slovakia, who, like me, is a first generation Canadian. She has lived in Canada for 14 years, 4 in Vancouver, and works as a nurse at LGH. We discussed the recent raise that she and her colleagues received
and made some comparisons on the pros and cons of residing in Vancouver.
Landing TroubleSo let's just get to the exciting part of the flight. The entire 10 hour trek was smooth, there was hardly any turbulence at all. Our circling above Frankfurt Airport was nice, just like what should happen during my previous 7 flights to here. We approached the airport at around 10:20am, flaps down, gear down, everyone was looking forward to stretching legs on the ground. Frankfurt Airport has two runways that are side-by-side. As we approached the left one, I said to myself, "The landing speed is kind of fast no?". There was a 747 holding for take-off on the next runway, and we had gone beyond it and still had not touched down.
As we hovered about 5 meters from the ground, the plane suddenly ascended and we were up again! I thought this kind of crap only happens in movies?
People's faces turn from
and
to
and
. There were screams, the flight attendant came on the radio and told people to calm down. Once we reached circling altitude again, the captain mumbled something about mechanical failure or plane on the runway?
The next twenty minutes were rather long as we did the exact same circle to approach the runway. Again, this time as we came down to the runway, we were going rather fast. For the longest seconds, it just didn't want to touch down until finally the rear landing gear landed really hard, then the front, also quite hard. This was followed by some serious braking power that almost pushed everyone's breakfast out.
Welcome to Frankfurt.
People were frightened but relieved. I don't need to experience that again. Oh wait, I am coming back on the same aircraft...
So how routine was that?? Eskimo, Fishin Chick?? Is this a way to punish me for not enduring on an Air Canada flight instead?
Noon at Frankfurt Airport was insane as usual. People from Asia, Australia, Africa, Americas and other parts of Europe all converged at one place as we tried find out transferring flight.
The one hour flight from Frankfurt to Copenhagen was pretty routine, I sat next to an old East Indian couple who were on their way to Seattle for the first time. I told them that they should head up to Vancouver as well, but they did not want to deal with the border hassle.
Anyways, back in this small apartment in Central Copenhagen again. We have made plans to wet a line in the morning since I can't sleep anywyas.
Anyways, I have made plans to do some outings with guys from
www.globalflyfisher.com and
www.sportsfiskeren.dk, hopefully we'll be able to deliver some sea trout and northern pike actions in the near future.
Author
Topic: 2006 Summer Danish Journal (Read 31388 times)