And away I go…
I flew from San Diego to Dulles (Washington DC) this morning, worked most
of the flight and then my laptop ran out of juice. This being the intro email, it is kind of long and very self involved.
This is a business trip to India to see some vendors and visit some call centers. I’ve traveled for work before but never international on business before.
The napkins are cloth, the glasses are glass and the seats are wonderful. God, I love first clas travel and Intl Business class is the cat’s ass. For starters, the seat lies almost flat, and they are wide and comfotable, I’d like one of these at the house. You’re greeted with a beverage, water or juice, right as you sit down. Your seat has a personal audio/video entertainment system, with a pop out screen that has a real time GPS map, which shows the planes progress and time remaining to destination.
Frankfurt
Landed in Frankfurt this morning after my 7 hour flight from Washington DC, I did nothing on my flight but eat(two huge meals), watch tv and sleep. Looking out the window on approach, it was beautiful seeing the sun just coming up and seeing the moon above the red sky. It amazing how clearly you can see the moon when you are flying 30000 feet above smog and city lights. The airport is a monument to steel and glass; it’s clean, well designed and secure, very German.
I turned on my cellphone and it connected and started sending me my email just like I was at home. I have a 6 hour layover here and having never been here I wandered through most of the shops and when I tired of that I went to the Red Carpet Club.
A nice thing about being in international business class with United is that you get complimentary access to the Red Carpet club which is a great place to relax on your layover. The club costs about $500 a year and has tv, ticket service, desks, conference rooms,beverages, snacks and a no-host bar in a area littered with comfortable chairs. The clubs are in most of the worlds airports, I used to have a membership when I traveled for a living.
In the US its one lounge for where everyone is equal but in Frankfurt there is a “Business” area and a “First” class area. I’m in Business lounge which is nice but now that I know there is another lounge, I want to see that one as well.
My layover here is long enough where I am considering going into Frankfurt for a quick look around, it’s a 15 min train trip direct from the airport.
I went to the information desk and after talking to them decieded it would cutting it too close to go to downtown frankfurt. Damn, I wanted that pasport stamp.
I then got bored and walked all over the airport, rode the tram and then found out that I could get into the Lufthansa Business Lounge. Much nicer than the Red Carpet club, so here I sit wishing my layover was a little longer so I could see Frankfurt.
At this point, I meet up with Tom Graly my boss and comrade in arms.
Flight to Delhi was about 7 hours, lufthansa was not as nice as United but that’s splitting hairs. I slept most of the time and we arrived in Delhi around 115am. The inside of the Airport was foggy and smelled like smoke.
We had a layover of 5 hours and needed to switch to the domestic airport which was across the tarmac. After they woke up the bus driver he drove us across the airport, which took 20 mins to the domestic airport. I’ve seen nicer animal shelters than the Delhi airport but it didn’t smell like smoke as much.
Our flight to Bangalore took about 2 1/2 hours and we arrived at 9am on Sunday. We got to our hotel and finaly after 36 hours of door to door travel we made it.
We meet the rest of the team that night in the hotel. The next day we visit our first vendor, Wipro.
More to come….