I have been in a bird strike where the windscreen of a small plane was shattered as were taking off from Kirkwall airport in the UK. These images of what hail can do to an Airbus 330 are astounding. This must have been quite a storm. The Emirates A330-200 (registration A6-EAP) was en route from Dubai, UAE to Munich, Germany as flight EK501. The plane went through a hail zone, 30 nautical miles south of Vienna, Austria. The crew decided to divert and landed safely at Prague, Czech Republic 40 minutes later. Passengers then travelled by…
Weird or Wonderful
Category Archives for Weird or Wonderful.
Don’t sneak your Business Class drinks out!
Got an upgrade to business class with United Airlines from Houston to New Orleans but my friend Betty didn’t. She asked me to get her a Baileys. So I ordered a Baileys from the cabin attendant and “snuck” it down to Betty in the economy cabin.The flight attendant was not amused. She told my friend Betty off in no uncertain terms and then came to me: “we dont allow our crockery into the coach cabin.” Naughty me! Am I banned from United business class for life?
Amazing A380 Cotrail
A huge contrail from an Airbus A380 filmed from cockpit of a KLM Boeing B747 above the South China Sea. You may need to watch it twice.
Man treads on my foot in Bizarre air incident
This has to be a first for me. As I snoozed comfortably in my British Airways BA 9 window seat from Bangkok to Sydney, a fellow passenger from behind me took a convoluted “short cut” through my seat area to get to the lavatory. In doing so, trod heavily on my foot. I woke up swearing to excruciating pain. The angle that my passenger must have stood on my foot caused it to bleed and on going pain! Worst is, I am a runner. BA staff very helpful. Why would you take a “short cut”…
The tale of the Falafel stand
It was lunchtime in Amma and the little food shop I passed was flat out. The guy behind the till was taking orders, answering the phone and frying flafel simultanesously. There was a long line of men waiting to buy. I asked for a falafel wahad (one falafel). He smiled and said “here you are” as he handed me a plate. “Sit down, welcome, enjoy.” I got my wallet and he waved me away. “sit down, welcome and enjoy“. I enjoyed it. The fresh falafel melted in my mouth. The salads were fresh and the…
The tale of the Convenience Store
I am going to share a series of my adventures on this mideast trip. Its been warm in Amman Jordan today. I have a favourite drink that I have been buying all over the city in the little stores that are ubiquitous here. It is bottled guava juice and it typically costs .4 of a Jordanian Dinar (55 of my cents). I stopped at the little store nearest to the hotel (160 metres away to be exact), grabbed a bottle of Guava juice from the fridge and greeted the shop keeper. He said “3 diners”…
NEVER, NEVER trust a Beirut Taxi Driver
I have shared my peeves about taxi rides from Hell before. Nothing prepared me for the taxis of Beirut. When I arrived at Lebanon’s Beirut airport, my pre arranged transport did not show (I found out later that someone forgot to book it!). My cell phone did not work and I could not find a working pay phone in the airport. So I stupidly headed to the door of the airport hall following a sign which said “taxis”! (Any other city, this would be logical). There appeared to be no order or logic to the line up of…
Fellow Passenger destroys my bag
I don’t check my luggage in for a number of reasons- one of which is avoiding having it damaged by the airlines. Yesterday, a gentleman was trying to get what looked like a very heavy and large bag into the aeroplane locker near me. It went in with a very loud bang. When I was getting off the plane, I discovered that he must have been shoving his bag in on top of mine. It was so heavy it distorted my bag and broke the handle off. I never could have imagined it. Thank you fellow…
Just flew my 711th flight!
Computer Says “No”- bad customer experience
Today, I am taking the train from Brisbane to Grafton, a regional town about 250 kilometres (150 miles) away. Then I am going onto Sydney (another 600km/ 360 miles). I am using a pass called the East Coast Discovery Pass which allows you unlimited travel in one direction on multiple rail systems in three states along the Australian East Coast. This pass used to be reserved for non Australian tourists but a year ago, it was opened up to Australians too. Today, I wandered into a rail ticket office to buy my pass. Have you…
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