I flew for 22 hours this weekend to get home from South Africa. The trip from JNB to SFO had a five hour layover in FRA. When also adding in travel time to and from the airport it adds up to about 33 hours.
I left Johannesburg on Saturday evening. My flight was on a Lufthansa 747. I was near the back of the plane which made for a bit of a bumpier ride. I usually sit over the wing where there is a more stable ride.
Well this picture did not turn out to well but you can see that we flew straight north over Africa on our way to Frankfurt. One thing that I did like with Lufthansa was their entertainment system. I was able to watch some of the World Cup games as they were played.
After a very long flight we landed in Frankfurt and I headed to the Lufthansa lounge for some rest.
Here was my ride from FRA to SFO. This was my first time to fly on an A380. I did not get a chance to see the upper deck, but did see the entire bottom deck as I walked all the way to the back.
My seat on the A380 was 93G. There was only one row of seats behind me on the plane. The plane was full for both flights, but luckily had smaller people sitting beside me on each one.
I was able to watch both of the Saturday World Cup games, but did not get to see the extra time or shoot out for the second one.
It was really nice to see this sign while waiting for the shuttle bus to pick up my car. My longest wait was for the shuttle bus as my trip from seat to curb was pretty much seamless.
Since I was in the back of the plane and we parked at the furthest gate from immigration the bags were already coming out by the time I reached the baggage claim. This was even with a very short trip through immigration. I used the Mobile Passport app and there was no one in the line for it. Two weeks ago I could not get the app to work and it took me 15 minutes to get through the regular line.
It is good to be home and I am really glad that I only had 22 hours of flying to get home instead of the 40 from the last time I flew home from South Africa. See: September 11 Memories
However, the overall trip had about the same amount of flight time since I ended up In the Wrong Place on the way to South Africa.
Now for some sleep.
Steven
Braman's Wanderings 