After finishing a few little things I spent most of the afternoon packing and then took the train to Frankfurt together with Zsófi. We got a bite to eat, and while Zsófi and Wolf went to bed, I was still busy setting up my netbook. Well, I had read that many companies don’t allow their workers to have unencrypted data on laptops when traveling to the US, as sometimes border controls would extend to laptop searches. Of course they didn’t look at me twice. – But I am getting ahead of myself.
So I slept about four hours and then got back up to go to the airport. The airline suggested being there three hours ahead of time and a number of people told me that with American Airways it could take a bit longer ahead of time. The thing is, I got my luggage checked in about ten minutes after getting off the train at the airport and after hanging out a bit longer with Zsófi, I decided to plan some reserve time for any further controls before the gate. However, that was pretty quick as well, so while I was happy to play it safe, I actually spent more than two hours just killing time at the airport (even after not counting the half hour, which it is reasonable to be at the gate in beforehand). I thought about buying a newspaper at the gate when that kiosk finally opened, but alas I didn’t have enough Euros to pay for any newspaper I’d actually want to be seen reading – my dollars on the other hand I didn’t want to break into yet as I was unsure about the last leg of my trip.
It turned out that things had changed a bit since my last transatlantic flight in 2002. Instead of a handful of TVs with a single program each set had it’s own screen and access to a multitude of electronic entertainment options. I watched Taken 2 and two more movies I can’t even remember, programmed a bit on my netbook and tried to doze a bit. The flight was literally only half-full so my neighbor had moved up a few rows and gotten a pair of seats for himself as well.
The whole cabin was pretty dim as almost everyone was watching something or sleeping, so pushing up a shade to look outside did not find a lot of love – when I did after we were flying over North America I almost expected my travel mates to hiss at me…
Philadelphia was very welcoming… NOT! About eight or ten border officials were on duty to check passports of all passengers from all international flights. I had about two hours between arrival and connecting flight. It took a good whole hour to get to the head of that line… And this was the US citizen line, the international was probably even a bit slower. One might see why I was increasingly nervous as I still had to get my stuff from the baggage claim, go through customs, recheck my baggage all the while boarding was scheduled to start twenty minutes later. The good customs officers saw me racing with my bagged 17kg backpack on my right shoulder, skidding to a halt, drawing a breath. “Do you have anything to declare?”, I answered with “One bottle of beer.” and was off running again after a scant “Off you go.”. I stood in line for a moment to get my bag rechecked then a bit longer again for being searched. This time I even had to take off my shoes… welcome to the US, home of the brave paranoid. My gate was the last one of maybe three dozen in that terminal. I arrived there shortly after the scheduled boarding time. While I stood there perspiring I noted that the gate was packed – and the composition of lean to overweight people had definitely keeled over. Boarding finally started five minutes before the scheduled takeoff, the taxi began twenty minutes after takeoff time and then we stood in line behind a dozen airplanes waiting for their turns to take off. What still fascinates me most was how all four lines waiting to take off had to wait several minutes for one airplane to land on the very same runway. As expected the airplane was full to the last seat. My neighbor made a severe first impression on me, but she turned out to be fairly affable. Nonetheless, I was more than happy to land in Pittsburgh after traveling sixteen hours from Wolf’s in Frankfurt i.e. almost a day after I had left our own flat in Karlsruhe with just a few hours of rest.
I’ll have to expand this tomorrow, and tell you about my adventures at the Pittsburgh airport, how I met Ron, Mark, John, Mike, and An, as well as my first exploring of Pittsburgh.
For now: Good night and good luck!
