Travel report : North Carolina - 08-20-2009
| The flight to Amsterdam (first layover) was plain boring: no near-crashes or something like that. In Amsterdam, we had 6(!) hours layover to fill in. Why are these flights scheduled this early then???. Anyway, somehow the stomach started to make funny noises and so we went off to look for a decent breakfast. Don´t get me wrong: These "breakfast bars" are actually called "coffee shop" but you don´t get just coffee there; mainly aromatic herbs... Well, try to find a breakfast bar at 9:00 AM that is already willing to earn some money. After three failures, we ended up in a side road and there we could finally read the word "breakfast" on the menu. Plus, it was open! So we entered and ordered. What we got was absolutely worth the money: a huge platter to fill the stomach. The coffee was just right for me but when Joern - my travel companion - took a sip you could see the curtain behind his eyes snapping up and somersault :-). Being a smoker, I found it very comfortable to have an ashtray on the table. A nice fag after a decent is a must. Ironically, the waiter came up to me and told me that smoking cigarettes was not allowed in the restaurant. What!? Sitting at the next table was a couple sharing a waterpipe which emitted sweet smelling plumes. Ok, I got it... So I smoked my cigarette in the open. After the smell of the waterpipe was really getting on our nerves, we decided to go for a little walk. It is quite astonishing, how poeple can survive and even live in those houses which don´t seem to have one right angle. Some picture taken during our stroll can be seen here: | |
| 08-20-2009 06:25 hrs, departure Hamburg - Fuhlsbüttel airport Yesterday, I checked us in via internet and so we didn´t need to join the waiting line at the check-in this morning. Just dropped off our checked baggage and off to security in no time. There, the usual procedure: take off any metal from the body (including belt), show the notebook, and pass. This time, secutity didn´t want to test my camera but my computer. Ok, off to the extra booth and have it checked. Maybe some of the white stuff left over from the last session remained under the keys :-)). |
|
 |
|
| The "new Gerrit" was one of our preferred motives :-) Since we mainly wanted to take railroad pictures, a sidestep to the main station was a must. | |
| In the Amsterdam central station we found this commuter train with a wheel arrangement of B + B + B. |
|
 Mounted high under the ceiling of the station hall, we found these information tiles. Now what do they want to tell us ? |
|
| This very interesting track connection was also found in Amasterdam´s central station: |
|
 Of course we couldn´t resist to take pictures in Schiphol airport station. Unfortunately, it was pretty dark in there and so the engineer compartment (located under the ceiling) of the so-called "Koploper" remains a dark secret... |
|
| The Dutch ICE presented itself in a somewhat better light: |
|
| Joern was in a hurry to catch this engine of the Dutch 1700-series... |
|
| After this short intermezzo it was back to the airport. Security-check, the second. This time, we also had to take our shoes off It is a rule that always soemthing goes wrong when you travel. This trip was no exemption: Our plane was 20 minutes late but we actually didn´t care any more. At least we knew we would arrive today... Luckily, the plane was an Airbus 319 and no narrow Boeing as it it is mainly used on inner-American flights. Finally, after two more hours: Charlotte, North Carolina. Now grab the baggage, take over the rental car, and off to the motel. Made an appointment for next morning´s breakfast hour and off we were to sleep! |
|
Für die englische Version dieser Seite bitte einfach das Sprach-Icon rechts neben der Titelgrafik anklicken...
Please click the language icon to the right of the sitelogo for the English version of this page...
© 2009 by Erhard Baltrusch, Hamburg, Germany