Wrapping up Paris...

The second day at the air show was to be comprised of flying displays.  This is the manufacturers opportunity to showcase the flying characteristics of their aircraft.  After all an air show is really about airplane manufacturers trying to sell aircraft to airlines and to the militias of the world.

This is an Airbus A380 which is the double decker plane that I showed in a previous post.  Airbus had it doing some spectacular acrobatics (mind you this was spectacular in and of itself because this is a double decker plane with a seating capacity for 800 people, although there were no passengers at this time). 

These are two pictures of the only supersonic commercial plane to ever exist.  The one with the blue letters that say France is the production version while the one with the red line across the fuselage was the preproduction version.   Sadly the Concorde was retired from service due to a severe crash and rising fuel costs.  With its retire the 3 hour transatlantic flight from JFK to LHR went with it.  

After the air show we went back into the city to kill some time before our easyJet flight to Zurich.  

Here are some pictures of the Arc D' Triomphe and the Louvre that were taken by me.  Also I am including an Eiffel Tower picture that I forgot to put with the last post.  

There you have it.  I hope you enjoyed my account of the City of Lights.  Next up is Switzerland land of chocolate and blondes. 

-max 

The City of Lights

After the first day of the air show my dad and I got our first chance to explore what is considered one of the most romantic cities in the world.  Thank god I got to do this with my dad.  At first we just walked around the city with no apparent goal.  Here are some pictures that we took of Paris.

This picture above shows some of the architecture of Paris.  It also shows how prominent the Eiffel Tower is. Also something that I didn't know before my dad brought it up is that buildings around the Eiffel Tower cannot be above a certain height so that this view is not restricted.  Personally I think this is a great idea as it allows France to display one of its most prominent icons to tourists no matter where they are looking from.  

This was looking up into the middle of the tower.  I was really excited when I took this picture because it is when you are standing in the middle of this magnificent structure that the full scope and awe comes in to play.
 

This is a picture of the elevators that take you up the legs of the tower.  The tract goes up and then tilts an even steeper angle.  It was a little discomforting going up the elevator because without warning the floor tilts and you accidentally bump into people which poses a problem in itself.  I didn't know whether to apologize in English or what the proper thing to say was so I just kind of murmured an apology.

Thats all for today.  In the next post I will continue with day two of the air show and maybe some more pictures of Paris.

-max

Paris Air show Day 1

Today I will be covering the first day of the Air Show mostly with pictures with explanations to go along with them.

To get from our hotel to the Air Show my dad and I chose to take the subway.  I know that the joke and stereotype of French people is that they don't shower but after being in their subway system I can wholeheartedly understand why.  The first steps that you take walking down into the subway is like falling face first into a sweaty towel that has been left on the floor for a couple of days.  (Ok maybe its not THAT bad, but it does smell).  Once the subway went above ground the smell gradually went away.  On the subway there were a lot of people like my dad and I headed to Paris Orly airport to see the Air Show.

 To the right is an Airbus A380  which is the only double decker airliner in the world.  There is more than one and they are currently flying with, Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Emirates, Airfrance and Lufthansa is set to get their first during the first half of 2010.

This is me standing next to a Rolls Royce Trent 800 engine which powers some of the 777 fleet of the world.  Don't let the picture fool you.  This thing is massive.  For a sizing reference, this engines diameter is the same diameter as the 737 series of aircrafts fuselage (where the people sit) which is largely flown by Southwest, American Airlines and DAL.

To round out this post I will show a picture of a plane.  I know you are probably thinking well cool?  Well this is John Travolta's private aircraft that wears a traditional Qantas Paint scheme.  I have also included a picture of his house in Florida where he lives next to a private runway.  At the top of the bottom photo is a Gulfstream G-5 and at the bottom is is 707.  I think he has a gorgeous house with gorgeous planes.  Do you think any of you could get used to this?

Paris and the Hotel Dilemma.

Three hours later when we arrived in Paris my dad mentioned that we did not yet have a hotel for tonight because he didn't want to have booked a room and then have us not make it to Paris that night.  We ended up finding a hotel close to the Arc De Triomphe on one of the streets that spiderwebs out from the center.  This was a little hole in the wall hotel with two tiny beds in a very tiny room.  My dad said that this would have to do for tonight as the next day we planned on moving to a larger more americanized institution.   

The next day as promised we moved to the larger hotel, and it was also the beginning of the air show.  The air show is one of the major parts of this trip (in fact it was the reason behind the trip) and so I will talk about it over the next couple of posts.  Also it will be a lot of pictures and descriptions.  

Also interspersed in the next couple posts will be pictures of the city that I took and I will talk about the culture so that readers have a better understanding of this magnificent city.  

Landing in London..

Upon landing in London Heathrow our aircraft taxied to a remote gate (one without a jetway).  Because we would be deplaning onto the taxiway my dad was able to take the picture to the right.  In the background of this photo is a PW4090 engine rated at 90,000 lbs of thrust.  After this photo was taken we proceeded to get on a bus to take us to the main terminal.

Due to all of the US bound arrivals into LHR we faced quite a substantial line once we reached immigration.  After looking around we found the shortest line and we were quickly through despite us thinking it would be a while.

Once on the other side of security we faced a dilemma.  We needed to be in Paris and not in London, so my dad and I pulled out our computers and began searching for ways to get to Paris.  After looking at flights, we determined that it would be too expensive so we went looking for EuroTrain tickets which would take us through the Chunnel.

Once we were on the train I blacked out due to the exhaustion of crossing time zones.  I'll pick back up this weekend when we arrive in Paris.

-max

My Trip Around the World

For the next couple of blog postings I will be retelling the story behind my travels around the world.  It started off here in Ft. Lauderdale at FLL.  It was the beginning of my around the world trip which was my 15th birthday present from my Dad.  The main goal of the trip was to go see the Paris Air-show, but in addition to this we also decided to see friends in Zurich, the magnificent buildings in Dubai and the culture in Hong Kong.  I will be splitting the blog postings by city but I will concentrate on the airports and the stresses of flying stand-by.  My Dad and I were going to be flying NRSA, this stands for Non Revenue Space Available, but this was only going to be across the Atlantic and the Pacific.  The reason is that United Airlines does not fly from CDG (Paris Charles De Gaulle) to ZRH (Zurich Kloten International Airport).

Back to FLL,
My Dad and I got to the airport early and we were hoping to either get on a flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Chicago or Ft. Lauderdale to Washington Dulles.  On this day United had a systemwide computer crash which was causing delays across the board.  The day was not off to a great start.  Eventually a plane arrived and it was headed to Washington Dulles (IAD).  The plane was late, but it wasn't extremely full so we were able to grab two seats.  Once on the plane my dad began looking at the list of flights we might take out of IAD.  Due to our delay most of our possible flights were crossed off the list.  We were hoping to fly into London Heathrow (LHR), Frankfurt (FRA), or Paris (CDG).

When we landed my dad told me to hurry off the plane because a flight to LHR was leaving in 10 minutes.  So as we rushed off the plane we hurried down to the gate for the LHR flight and managed to get there just before they were going to retract the gate.  The gate agent printed off two Economy Plus tickets for us and I was on my first flight across the Atlantic aboard a United Airlines 777-200ER painted in the Star Alliance color scheme.

I have included a map of all our flights so you can see where the next blog postings will be headed.

A new way to travel?

Due to no comments on my first post I am going to try and go in a different direction with this one.  In this post I will be talking about Air New Zealand and their new economy class seats.  Air New Zealand is calling it the sky couch.  It will be on the companies new 777-300ER's and what it will be is three seats that fold out into a five foot long bed for either one or two.  This product is revolutionary in that it is the first to offer a "bed" in economy class.  I have included a picture for you guys to look at.  Air New Zealand says that customers will have to buy two seats at full price and the third half off.  Does anybody see this working out for Air New Zealand?  Would you pay for it?  Keep in mind that the aircrafts that are being configured with this will most likely be flying between Auckland and the west coast of the United States.  That is about a 16 hour flight.  Is it looking more appealing to you know?  Let me know.


-max