Outward Bound

Departed Atlanta about 1900 (7:00 pm for all you civilian types) on World Airlines, a small airline that—so far as I know—does only chartered flights. The plane was not overloaded so I got a seat on the aisle with an empty seat beside me. The flight crew was very prompt and efficient with beverage service and meals, which was nice for us passengers. About 20 minutes into the first film (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, with Matthew McCaughnahey), I could tell it was not going to be worth watching and plugged myself into my MP3 player to listen to an audiobook, (Crossroads of Twilight, Book 10 in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan).

That worked pretty well, except that the movie on the screen in the airplane kept distracting me from the story, even though I didn’t have the airplane headphones on to hear the movie. So I wrapped a kerchief around my eyes, as if I were trying to sleep so I could listen to the audiobook without visual distraction. —with predictable results. I kept dozing, and losing parts of the story, so I had to rewind the story several times. … which is not a big problem. I probably needed the naps more than I needed to finish the story.

One of the times I came back to consciousness, I took off the kerchief and saw that there was a different movie on – the Tom Cruise movie about the German officers who tried to assassinate Hitler. However, it was well into the movie so I didn’t put on the airline headphones. In fact, I soon saw that it was actually very near the end of the movie. So, sorry, I don’t have a viewer’s assessment of whether it was a decent movie or not.

About 0400 (4:00 AM) Atlanta time, 1000 (10:00 AM) local time, we arrived at Leipzig-Halle airport in Germany. Weather is bright and clear, but a bit chilly. Busses met us at the plane and took us, not to the main terminal, but to a small, layover terminal building. (Somehow “layover terminal” sounds like it should be an oxymoron, but I don’t know what else to call it.) The expected layover time is about an hour and a half, while the ground crew refuels the plane, restocks food and beverages and cleans the plane. It’s not too bad a place to stop. There is typical airport terminal seating, a gift shop and a little café. As one of my co-travellers says, “It beats a tent.”

Naturally, after eight hours in the air, the smokers immediately strolled out to the outdoor smoking area to inhale some toxins.

There’s free Internet in the terminal, if one can succeed in getting connected. Although I managed to connect with the network, it only gave me local access, not Internet access, so I didn’t get my mail checked, and didn’t get a chance to check in on Facebook, Skype or Google Voice.

That’s a common problem I experience. Sometimes it’s just a matter of waiting while the computer and network get to know each other or something, and Internet comes up after a wait. I don’t know whether I’ll have time to wait, though. I don’t have a full battery charge, and naturally the correct adapter is in my checked luggage, so I cannot plug in my computer. Tried disconnecting and reconnecting, but that’s not working so far. Also tried to walk around the terminal to see whether there is a spot where I can get better-connected, without success.

I was rather amused to see the number of Soldiers who whipped out their notebook computers and tried to get on the Internet. Some even cared enough to pay to get on the LAN computers here in the terminal, but I didn’t think anyone was urgently desiring to hear from me at 4:00 AM, so I wasn’t about to pay. Since I now have a low battery warning and still don’t have Internet access, I guess this message won’t go out until I get to Kuwait.

Leipzig from the air prior to landing.

Getting off the plane onto busses.

What do Soldiers do with their down time? They get on the Internet (above) and they sleep (below).