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Key System car #187 is an articulated all-steel suburban car designed and built to run over the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge. These cars ran in trains of up to 7 units on five lines across the Bay Bridge and in East Bay streets from 1939 to 1958. This car is currently configured in the early Pacific City Lines (post 1948) appearance. Built by Bethlehem Shipyard, Willington, DE. in 1937. Photo taken at the Western Railway Museum, located between Suisun City and Rio Vista, CA .
Our Daily Topic = Orange
View from window of the Berlin Hilton, looking to the structures (or rather, the roofs of the structures) of the Gendarmenmarkt across the street. It is a lively scene of many statues high up in the air, a very “happening” place that few people see. The figures in the foreground are on top of a portion of the Deutsche Dom, or German Cathedral, an old German Protestant-Reformed church that is now a museum. The charioteer in the middle ground is atop the Konzerthaus, now home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The dome in the background is the Franzoesische Dom, or French Cathedral, which was built for the Huguenots, who found refuge in Protestant Berlin following their expulsion from France at the end of the 1600s; it now houses the Huguenot Museum.
Someone asked on FlyerTalk about the nearest place with grass they could take a dog during a layover in FRA. This seems to be the spot.
Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake), a traditional afternoon pastime in Germany, on the outdoor terrace cafe of the Zeppelin Museum, on the harbor at Friedrichshafen.
Our Daily Topic = Coffee or Tea
Main course - tenderloin of beef. Outstanding! Again, the best meal I've had on UA in a long, long time.
First course. The smoked fish appetizer was quite good, as was the salad dressing (and the lettuce was fresh and crisp). A wonderful change from my previous four flights (all in first class) on UA in the past year.
View of the Danube River, Pest and the Parliament bldg. from Budapest Hilton (on Castle Hill on the Buda side of the city).
Ice cream and coffee (here also with loads of whipped cream!). By the end of our trip, I was quite a fan of this drink.
The underground passage between Concourses B and C in Terminal 1. Always a fun walk.
Dave was playing with the special effects settings of his camera.
The underground passage between Concourses B and C in Terminal 1. Always a fun walk.
Dave was playing with the special effects settings of his camera.
Dinner, night 1.
The menu calls these crispy raviolis, but they were fried wontons to me. Menu description: "shredded duck in crispy raviolis with enoki, carrots, radishes, coriander leaves and honey." It was VERY delicious.
The bathroom window has a great view of Hanalei Bay - electronic windows (shown rear above the tub) blackout for privacy the the flick of a switch. The bathroom had a fabulous jacuzzi tub.
The very small restaurant at the Doubletree Hotel in NYC's Financial District. Lots of Gorgonzola cheese, yum! But what was with the stewed tomato??
As it turns out, we ate a lot of hamburgers in NYC - fancy / unusual burgers seem to be an "in" food item at the moment.
Dinner, night 1.
The wine ("Chateau la Loge") is from a very local winery, Fronton AOC, which was about 5 miles from the hotel.
This is taken from the eastern end of one of the runways at the old Alameda Naval Air Station (decommissioned in 1997), looking to the west towards SF. The runways are normally off-bounds behind cyclone fences (they are being allowed to fall into ruin and be returned to nature as a wildlife refuge), but occasionally a special event is held and at least part of the area is opened to the public. We were lucky to run across one such event and took the opportunity to get behind those fences and check things out.
In this area (X marks the spot, so to speak) was the location of the Alameda Airport and Yacht Harbor, which was the site from which Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) initiated trans-Pacific airmail service in 1935 with a flying boat named China Clipper. The Navy took over the airport and surrounding land and filled everything in to create the Naval Air Station runways in 1939. See map of original shoreline here: www.flickr.com/photos/jassy-50/44227195085/in/dateposted-... California Historical Landmark No. 968 (the CHL marker is at Alameda City Hall West, which is not the actual location of the Pan Am flights but is accessible to the general public).
This is the view a pilot would have (well, OK, the pilot would be a lot higher up) as he prepared to take off over SF Bay and the Bay Bridge (directly ahead, with Yerba Buena Island toward the right), with the SF skyline to the left in the distance and the Oakland Estuary portion of the Port of Oakland running parallel to the runway along the right. The hotshot Navy pilots were notorious for daredevil flying under the Bay Bridge, a big no-no, but you can see what a direct shot it would be from this runway. Quite a temptation!
Our Daily Topic = A Colored Line
View from plane window on approach to London Heathrow Airport. I so like flying into LHR because the approach follows the Thames right through the heart of London.
Two Weeks Notice = All Pictures
SFO/SYD flight. The United International First Class cabin in the nose of the 747, at boarding time. Selection of newspapers.
Early morning on Av. Kleber: the great Parisian institution, the sidewalk cafe, awaits its first customers.
Our Daily Topic = 3
View looking left from our little balcony.
We were upgraded to a full ocean (bay, actually) view room with balcony and fireplace. It was a very nice spot. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is right next door.
C-47 Skytrain (famous for its pivotal role in the Berlin Airlift) cantilevered off the roof of the Berlin Technical Museum, which includes an aviation section.
Our Daily Topic - From Below
View from plane window on approach to London Heathrow Airport. I so like flying into LHR because the approach follows the Thames right through the heart of London.
This view of the Chicago skyline is actually from the window at the end of the 9th floor corridor just a couple rooms down from our room. If the room at the end (#9116) has a window on its side wall as well as to the front, it has awesome views.
*Best viewed in the original size* The first stop on our visit to Bavaria was Regensburg, on the Danube River where it is joined by the Regen River. The area has been settled continuously for thousands of years (an ancient Celtic settlement (Radisbona) became the site of a Roman legionary camp, Castra Regina (founded AD 179)). The main attraction of Regensburg is its excellently preserved medieval city center. As one of the few cities in Germany largely undamaged during World War II, Regensburg boasts the largest preserved medieval city center in Germany. Its imposing patricians' houses (12th–14th century) are unique in Germany and the Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge 1135–46) on the Danube is a medieval engineering marvel. The Cathedral of St. Peter (1275–1524) is one of the most important Gothic churches in Bavaria, with 14th-century stained-glass. Regensburg is sometimes called "the northernmost city of Italy" due to the large number of Italian-style medieval merchant houses and towers. Its medieval center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Photo taken from the bridge just east (downriver) of the Old Stone Bridge.
[Panorama of two handheld photos. At the time these two photos were taken I did not have any intention of stitching them together, thus the askew-ness of the borders.]
Two Weeks Notice = Rivers and Lakes
B-17 Flying Fortress (Nine-O-Nine) taking off from Moffett Field, CA. She is one of only 14 still flying in the US. A beautiful sight!
Our Daily Topic = Book Title ("To Conquer the Air")
We ended up visiting all three of the Red Carpet Clubs during our 12-hour layover at Chicago O’Hare (yes, I know they are called United Clubs now, but I just cannot get used to such a boring name). I hadn’t been to this particular Club in several years, and they have done a very nice job of re-modeling it. It is light and airy, the bar is snazzy and there is a really nice large work area.
A group of 15 frequent fliers from Vielfliegertreff.de/Flyertalk.com joined the other passengers of the first flight to Beijing.
This restaurant is on the second floor of the terminal at Long Beach Airport. It has fabulous views of the airport. We didn't eat here (not enough time), so I don't know how good the food is. But I'd come here just to while away the time watching out those floor-to-ceiling windows. The restaurant is outside the security area and so is accessible to the general public. The Boeing C-17 factory is in the background.
Update 2014: With the opening of the new terminals, this restaurant has now been closed. This is very sad, as it was a very cool venue.
Update 2015: The Boeing C-17 factory is closing this summer. The last C-17 rolled off the assembly line in Sept. 2014.
Dinner, night 1.
I was not expecting cold soup. It was asparagus season and the French (and Germans) love asparagus. One could find it in any restaurant. From the menu: "asparagus soup coated with nut oil, crunchy tangy asparagus slices, and marscapone."
White sand, approaching storm, deserted beach. Cancun's beach is made up of diatoms (the skeletons of minute sea creatures) and was blazingly white while being cool to the touch no matter how sunny or hot the day. Beautiful!
A nice hotel at the airport. The public areas are quite "hip". The rooms (at least ours) are smallish and minimalish but comfortable. This was one of their "business rooms". The white plastic desk chair did not seem to belong to the room or fit the decor - perhaps (hopefully) it was a temporary replacement.