Departure Odyssey

04-27-2005

12:30pm Christoph and me are sitting in the plane right now - still on the ground. After already being on the airfield a few minutes ago we had to abort the departure due to electrical/electronical problems. The captain who is on his retirement flight today explained this via "the displays are blinking like a christmas tree". Some time later he continued: "To make this all even more exciting and if you are wondering why firemen are gathering around the plane right now, a little bit of fuel is leaking out of the right wing." This is no joke! So we're just waiting here of what's going on. Maybe we will have to leave the plane...

02:30pm We're back in the lounge of the airport. We had to leave the plane and got 15 Euros vouchers each for McDonalds, BurgerKing or the Mövenpick restaurant. We went to Mövenpick of course and ate tagliatelle with cream sauce plus pollack filet for lunch. Really tasty. Departure is scheduled for 4pm.

08:15pm Writing this while being in the air. We finally made it. We took off a little bit after 4pm. There's absolutely no space in here. We already got lunch number two. Pasta again. Much worse than at Mövenpick. Also slept and read a bit. Absolutely don't know what to do now. Christoph is busy learning for the driving license test. Most of the captain's family is on board today and I just signed his scrab book. Whoops, turbulences. Have to buckle on. What else? We'll definitely miss our follow-on flight from Atlanta to San Francisco and will probably have to stay at a hotel in Atlanta tonight. Maybe we can visit Atlanta downtown a little. Heard there's a large hardrock cafe and the largest hotel in the world. So we'll see...