Puddle Jumping

Greetings from Graz!

Travel went smoothly and I've been able to nap.

First we drove to Detroit with our own personal rain cloud escort.  Got through security without incident and people watched until the plane arrived.

The first leg was Detroit to DC in a little Embraer that required we stow our carry-on bags because the overhead compartments were more symbolic than functional.

And it continued to rain.

The rows held three seats each and I sat by the window.  A person behind me was on his way to try out for the Washington Footballteam.

Here's a  big river.

Suburbs.  They take their little boxes filled with ticky tacky seriously here.

Landed on time, so here's some plane butts.

Had to take a train to get to the right gate.

I had time to sit down for lunch, where I was presented with a fork and a please-don't-hijack-the-plane knife.

'Twas yummy.

The big plane.  Lufthansa uses Airbuses for the overseas flights.  This one took up two gates.

We were actually fairly lucky to leave on time.  The rainstorm that we flew through on the way to DC was approaching and was threatening to delay flights when it arrived, but we got out before it hit.

Apparently this thing is called a people mover.  It's a way of transporting people from the gate to the small planes that's still used at Dulles, though I didn't get to see it in embarking or debarking mode, so I'm not sure how it works.

It's a little hard to see but there's a rainbow ring visible on the clouds under the wing.

This flight was mostly during the day so I got to see more of the landscape we were flying over than usual.  Canada is full of lakes.  The glaciers created mokume gane out of the landscape.

The Frankfort airport is long.  While I was waiting at the gate, a guy asked me if I was going to Athens.  The gate was a go catch a bus gate so there were a succession of regional flights scheduled to depart from it every half hour.  I told him I was going to Austria and he congratulated me on our Eurovision victory.  I helped him take a picture in front of one of the big planes.

I slept through the Frankfurt-Graz flight but woke up in time to take a picture of the landscape.

No problems at all getting home from the airport.  Tomorrow I'm meeting with the other teachers to do some planning, then I'm taking Maxi to a children's theater in the afternoon to see something based on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.