Text 3254, 67 rader
Skriven 2010-10-30 16:35:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 679
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Then on to the maintenance hangar, which was heaven for
hardware geeks - I'm not one but found it interesting anyway
with the opportunities to see aircraft of famous people and
to peek into the spare engine room and various other places
that the public doesn't see.

And the now-obligatory behind-the-scenes baggage handling
tour - an impressive operation, with huge input and output,
and it's a wonder so few pieces go missing in proportion to
what gets delivered reasonably on time and intact. Funny how
many of these I've attended lately - it's almost as though
the airlines are trying to reassure their most frequent
flyers that it's okay to check a bag.

Operations headquarters is a treat for the IT people, with
the mind-boggling amount of data that has to be collected
and collated in order to get us where we need to go.

Finally, the bus tour of the tarmac. We were treated to some
beautiful takeoffs and landings and some less beautiful
statistics about the airport, and then it was time to say
auf wiedersehen, and to the Hilton, where I had a nice
corner room. Vienna with its terrific public transport is
easy to get around, especially from this great location.

Off to Figl's for drinks and a nice Schnitzel buffet.
Ottakringer dark was the order for the day, though some
oddballs had glasses of Zweigelt (okay) or Blaufranksch
(more okay) instead.

Appetizers: sliced beef with raspberry vinaigrette and
mozzarella and tomato salad, both homey and filling.

Soup course: I was one of the few to get leberknoedelsuppe,
whose dumpling was enormous (there are pictures out on the
Web someplace) and quite like what I used to make for myself
back when I was a Teutonic boy [g]; I forget what the other
soup choice was.

The buffet: pork and chicken schnitzel, of which I had the
former, quite nice though not so nice as made to order, but
what can you do about that; kummelbraten, good but not
fatty enough for my taste - probably too fatty for others;
schinken (ham).

For afters, a respectable strudel and a warm chocolate cake
that unfortunately tasted as if it had been made with whole-
wheat flour in a polite nod to health concerns.

Jollity aplenty, but suddenly an alarm rang simultaneously
in several Hilton Gold and Diamond heads, and we lit out of
there at 2215, hardly pausing to say "until tomorrow," and
well before the festivities had ended.

We hopped on the bus to the subway and back to the hotel,
hoping we'd get there before the executive lounge closed!

We returned to the lounge at quarter to, only to find that
the staff had cleared the booze. Somehow we managed to get
a couple bottles of Blaufranksch; when we were done with
these we were gently encouraged out by such methods as the
cleaning person vacuum around us: to be fair, it was at
least ten after when we toddled to our respective homes.

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