Tag Archives: SFO

And Now We Wait

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My sister drove us to the airport (thanks, Carolyn!) and we got through security in less than five minutes. What a breeze that was. Then it was up to the Polaris lounge. We opted to do a light lunch (or shall we call it dinner?) there’s where we began with a but if crab dip, and then I had a squash dish. Quite yummy … and the glass of champagne is sort of a requirement when we start a trip. At least in my little opinion!

Then we found some seats (this place is nearly empty, but I think the entire terminal feels that way) because we had an hour and forty-five minutes to go before boarding would begin.

I’m all for having a ton of time. I’m not one who is comfortable cutting things close so I’d prefer sitting around and relaxing. My kind of travel.

Then it was time to read, rest, and relax. Yep, the three Rs!

Oh … and an update on my capsule wardrobe because I’m sure you are all dying to know — I nixed my black turtleneck and I wore my beige one instead. News you can (or can’t … or won’t) use!

And my backpack … welllll … it weighs more than I had hoped because I decided to bring a somewhat nicer looking raincoat in case I need it when we go to concerts. So it goes. My backpack weighs about nineteen pounds. Some suggest they should weigh fifteen. Maybe next time …?

The sling, too, is heavier than I’d like because I’m bringing my Fuji camera and I put it in the sling bag. I was telling Dan that maybe next time I will only bring my phone. I wonder if I can convince myself to do that, though. If I left my camera at home I actually could manage to get everything into just the backpack if I was careful with packing.

But will I ever manage to do that? Who knows?! (And, perhaps, who cares!)

And then it was time to board. Again, that was quick and easy, and I even managed to get my pack lifted in to storage.

Dan and I aren’t sitting together this time: our experiment of sorts was to grab the side Polaris seats so we can both have windows. He’s in row 5 and I’m in 7. I believe the foot space for the side seats is smaller, but I look forward to looking out the window when it’s lighter out. Right now it’s 6:12 PM and rather dark. Not a great photo, but oh well!

Okay … ready to go! Ciao for now!

Thursday, June 18, Part Two

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We are in the first row, in the Polaris lay flat seat area. Yes, we chose row one. Some suggest it is better to be further away from the kitchen, but I like being here: it’s quick and easy to get off the plane, and we are close to the toilet. (Except at certain times when they don’t allow us up there — I think it’s when they are serving the pilots or something. What I do miss, though, is a window seat. We’ve talked about maybe giving that a go next time. It means we won’t be next to each other, but we don’t do a lot of talking on a plane anyway.

I had ordered a special meal for this flight because I’d read you often get better food that way. What I didn’t realize when I ordered the “healthy, low salt and low sugar” meal was that I was getting the diabetic meal! And no, it wasn’t special or better. So next time I either go back to the normal menu or I try something different like perhaps the Asian or kosher meal. But, really, United doesn’t do great food. So it goes. These two images show all the food I was served. Doesn’t it look … um … oh never mind. And no, I didn’t eat it all.

After getting my “healthy” meal I was asked what I wanted for dessert. Well … duh … the ice cream sundae! I’m guessing they were wondering about me at that point.

I read for a bit and then put the seat down and slept. Time has no meaning on a plane: there is no day or night. There just … well … is, if you get my drift. You just spend 10+ hours being.

After a bit of a snooze I started reading some more, and eventually some food was brought out. Because of my (foolish) food choice I was given some sort of wrap full of eggplant and I don’t know what else … I took one bit and Dan offered to switch so I got his grilled cheese sandwich and chips and he ate my eggplant whatever. He said it was pretty good.

Then back to reading mixed with resting mixed with doing nothing.

At about 2:00 PM PST the lights were turned on in the plane. Shortly after we were handed our warmed towels and a flight attendant passed by saying “Morning!”

Hmm. In London it would be late at night. In California it’s mid-afternoon. I’m not sure what “Morning!” would be about.

Soon my next “special meal” was delivered, along with sparkling water. Too. Much. Food. They called it lunch, but it was more than I would normally eat for dinner at home. It wasn’t exactly an epicurean’s delight, but it sufficed.

When we landed it was a bit of a bumpy bit and my water bottle fell and rolled over to where the flight attendant was sitting. Made me laugh. After landing it took a while to get to the gate because another plane was still in that space. Then the person (or persons?) who were driving that thing (Dan told me the name but I’ve forgotten) that connects to the plane that we walk through to get into the terminal was having difficulty aiming things correctly so we had a bit more waiting. But finally, out we went! And out went my brain. I forgot to take any more photos at all.

My sister picked us up (thanks, Carolyn!) and we then had the wonderful joy of being welcomed back to the Bay Area with a lot of traffic. But so it goes. We got safely home, opened all the windows because the house was quite stuffy, and started to unpack, make up the bed, and do all the things one has to do.

And yes, I’m fully unpacked and the suitcase is put away. But I still have much to do: the house is quite dusty, and we have piles of mail. (Oh Jan and Greg, you should see your stack of mail!)

But now? It’s 8:10 PM our time and while I feel a bit dazed I don’t feel tired. We’ll see how I sleep.

So that’s that. We had a great trip. We are home. I am grateful.

Time to Head Home (9/25/25)

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We could start quite lazily today (but then when can’t we?!). I showered while Dan did whatever it is he does on his computer. Then I played a few of my games, started this blog, and began the packing adventure. The only thing I have to add to the mix is my new Boston cap, so packing should be fast and easy.

We discussed what we’d do with our shorter day and then we received a text: our flight was being delayed (by two hours so far) because the incoming flight was arriving late due to low visibility which limited the number of planes allowed to land each hour. Gee, memories of when we left SFO! We could look at other flights and reschedule and/or reroute if we wanted so I took a quick look and, sure enough, there was a 1:05 flight so I grabbed it. By the time I’d done the necessary box clicking the seats I wanted were gone, and the departure time had changed to 1:35. Unfortunately we now couldn’t get one aisle seat, but so it goes. We’d rather get home earlier, after all. Shortly after we received texts saying our flight was now delayed until 2:15!

In any case, this meant change of plans: we’d first pack and be ready to go, leave our luggage downstairs, and go grab our coffees. Knowing how traffic is here we want to leave plenty of time to get to the airport!

Leaving to get coffee at the closest place that wasn’t Starbucks (we only go there out of desperation!) the rain came down. And I mean really came down. It was a true downpour.

We had our umbrellas, but were still a bit wet when we arrived at the coffee spot. Of course the rain immediately died down when we went inside. But we got our food and coffee, sat down, and spent a bit of time there.

Then back to the hotel we went.

We didn’t want to chance a late checkout, and knowing how slow the one available elevator was we made sure not to take a chance. So up and then down we went, and Dan called for a Lyft.

We had an uneventful ride to the airport.

Just a few from-the-car photos:

Security was quick and easy. Dan got us into the lounge (I have no clout!) and we relaxed. Soon the departure time for our flight was yet again later, listing 2:58 for take off with boarding beginning at 2:18. I started to wonder if our landing might be what we had planned on with the later flight!

The lounge was fairly empty when we arrived, and nice and quiet.

Of course eventually it did fill up: we obviously wouldn’t be the only ones affected by all the delays. I’m just grateful that Dan has the charge card that gets us into a lounge and we can get our “free” food. (Obviously paying for the card — and it’s not cheap! — means nothing is truly free.) We had nice seats right at the window so we could watch planes take off and disappear into the clouds. We were also near our gate so we could see when the plane we would be taking (coming from Chicago) landed.

Boarding was quick and easy. I was in the middle seat, and Dan had the window. The woman who had the aisle was definitely not one to want to converse. She also was wearing a hoody AND a puffer jacket — I would have roasted! She stood to let us in, but then she hunkered down and I did wonder if she’d ever get up. At one point I finally asked to get out to use the bathroom (oh how I wish we’d had the aisle!). But the flight was fine, and home we went.

The terminal is a bit of mess to get through at the moment, but we made our way out (eventually) and took the tram to our car in long term parking. We arrived home safe and as sound as is possible for us. (Well, I suppose I shouldn’t speak for Dan. Hah!)

Next up (after some music work for me): Chicago!

And now we wait

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Waking very early at our hotel, we opted to give the “free breakfast” a go. Um. Maybe not. But the place was so inexpensive I won’t complain. Then it was free shuttle time and we arrived at the airport nice and early — an hour earlier than we had planned, in fact (and even that original plan would have gotten us here mega-early!). I’m always an early bird, but this was even odd for me. Not a problem for a person who always worries about time!

We checked our bags (and the woman at the desk was really sweet and quite funny) — pretty much no line — and then headed to security. Again, barely a line. Nice!

Next up was the Polaris lounge.

And their sweet little restaurant area. Even at the early hour I was hoping for lunch, as I want to move my brain to the time we will encounter after the flight, but nope, only breakfast served. Such is life. I did, though, have champagne to celebrate our trip and my “big day” tomorrow. (Yes, another birthday poem will be posted … I’ve already set it up for my other site, the pattyo.)

And more sitting. And relaxing.

And getting locked out of Venmo. ACK!

Yes. Locked out. Turns out I did too much too quickly and they deemed it suspicious and decided to suspend my account until I share my photo ID and change my password. Then it takes up to seven days to get me back in. How annoying is that?

But still, that’s not a huge issue, since I won’t use it in Europe anyway. But I had one more payment to make and now I am unable to do it. Rats!

Soon we’ll head out to fill our water bottles (I’m determined to not use the plastic water bottles in the airplane — or elsewhere for that matter) and search out a few things (if available at a reasonable price).

Stay tuned for more … but I can’t be sure it will be today. Only time will tell.

And Life Goes On

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We woke bright and early today to get to the airport. We added extra time because of the issue with my boarding pass. Turned out getting the pass printed was as quick as can be, simply done at a kiosk. Then we went to the lounge to hang out for a rather lengthy amount of time, but it was quiet most of the time (eventually more people showed up, including some guys talking loudly about basketball. I haven’t a clue what they were saying, really, but I think one might have been someone who manages players or something and he was telling the other guy — not someone he was traveling with — about players. Exciting news, I know. That’s why I’m sharing it with you!).

We headed to security (I actually like it better when the lounge is after the security area because then I don’t worry about that line, but oh well). When I got through the machine that makes sure I’m not a dangerous person I was pulled aside and a guy checked the front and back of my hands, dragging some sort of thing across them. Then he put that in a machine. Thankfully I was considered okay, so we moved on.

After sitting for a short bit, it was time to board. A security person checked boarding passes and looked at mine and said I had to have my bags checked. Eek! I did NOT want to check my luggage. But what she meant was I had to walk over to a different location and have my bags checked for security reasons. Ah-hah! THAT was why my ticket was the way it was: it was a random security check. They made me open my bags up, pull out my computer, and then shoes came off. A woman ran the same thing the earlier person did over my shoes, my socks, my hands … and by this time I was just so tired of it all. They looked a bit at my luggage and then said I was fine. I had to pack everything up and race back to the line, which had moved quite a bit. Dan had already gotten through, but waited for me to be sure all was well. Then into the plane we went.

I tried to tell myself it was San Jose time already (thanks for the suggestion, Jan!), but I sure wish airlines would do the same and serve meals on the new time rather than the old. The breakfast they served sometime around 9:00 AM Paris time was huge! After eating I went to sleep. I actually did okay sleeping, and did so several times. More food was served later. I think they have decided to fatten us all up.

My diet begins tomorrow.

We landed a bit ahead of schedule, and went through customs via Global Entry. Getting that was so worth it — we sped through customs, met Carolyn (thanks!) outside, and came home.

So here we are. A bit discombobulated, but alive and kicking. I’ve done laundry, played English horn, put away clothes … and attempted to keep my eyes open.

I plan on writing a bit about where we went in one post for those interested. But that may take a while: first I have to get a few things done. (I would have at least posted a photo or two from today, but they are taking a long time to download since I’m doing the full trip on my computer … I’ll post them tomorrow, I hope.)

Ciao for now!