Uff, you know sleeping in economy class is always kind of an adventure – but having 2 drunk males (i guess they were belgians, Teemu thinks dansk) behind you who try to figure out the deeper background of Casino Royale. Well, it just *sucks*.
The flight itself was seemingless. We catched both connections and that even though we had very tough transfer times (1 hour in Paris – which means a mission impossible for Paris CDG). The fear of Teemu regarding Air France however came to be true. It’s amazing how flying changed in the last few years. On one hand you have cheaper prices for inner european connections now. But you also have increased prices (you know – security …) on long distance (especially the United States). However although the prices raised the service on board and also at the airports decreased dramatically (maybe it’s just my subjective opinion). At the airport in Vienna i was very astounded about the incompetence and rudeness the woman at the checkin desk had. I was just asking about the connection in Los Angeles to United and she just came up with “i don’t care about that”. At least they brought us to LA on time.
But for sure the flights couldn’t be without any problems at all. When we arrived at LAX we were astouned that the immigration and luggage pickup were working fast (about 20 minutes). So we headed over to the terminal our flight with United should depart from. A nice woman at the checkin desk (Air France someone) made a fast and competent checkin and even explained us the way to the gate (Air France huh?). So we headed over to our gate took a coffee at Starbucks and grabbed our first US Dollars from a nearby ATM. The boarding was done in some minutes and so we jumped on our plane to San Diego which was a Brasilia EMB-120 (according to the onboard brochure). I’ve been on such kind of “airtaxi” my first time it only had place for about 10 people and was really nice to fly with. The flight to San Diego took just 35 minutes and so we arrived there on time at about 7pm. I’ve already been a little bit tired then. So we waited for our bagges … and waited … and waited … and waited. While i … waited … Teemu went out to call our hotel for the pickup shuttle. After waiting for a while i headed over to the United desk and guess what? United lost our bagges from LA to San Diego.
But the girl at the information desk was really nice and beyond helping us with our lost luggage she gave us some tips for San Diegos nightlife. A little later we arrived at La Jolla (speak: La Hoya) which is about 20 minutes ride from San Diego airport.
Now we’re going to grab our first american burger here and then fall asleep. It’s about 10pm here.