Viewing posts tagged vacation
The USS Hornet CVS-12 is an unusual destination for Europeans on a US trip. However, the old air craft carrier is very interesting, history- and technology-wise. We spent there a couple of hours, being lead through the lower decks of the ship and being shown the bridge and war-room on the upper decks. The guides are old veterans who were on duty on the ship. It is hard to describe the atmosphere, but I recommend anyone who is interested in marine history to visit the ship.
We drove up to Twin Peaks today. Quite foggy (the radio tower was hidden in clouds,) but still a nice view of San Francisco. Next, we drove to the pacific and through Lincoln park. On the parking lot of a beach we met Lynard, Furvan and who else was with them, watching a towing service pulling an SUV (none of our vehicles, of course) from the beach. An SUV is not suitable for crusing through dunes, you silly townspeople!
The weather wasn't as good as yesterday, small showers during the day and pouring rain at night. In the morning, we went to Alcatraz. I didn't shoot many photos, but my father was filming quite a lot with my video cam. Seems he has a new hobby now :-)
We got up early, but it took a while to get started. After breakfast, we took the tram line F to buy some tickets for Alcatraz for tomorrow (I just hope that it won't rain all the time) and bought a three day Muni pass. Next, we went shopping at Border's. I bought some CDs and two DVDs for a reasonable price. Afterwards, we waited twenty minutes in line for the cable car back to Fisherman's Wharf and talked to a nice elderly couple from Michigan, I believe.
Arriving at San Francisco, Lufthansa called me to the customer service desk, apologized for the delayed piece of luggage and asked me where to deliver it tomorrow. You may remember what I had to do to get my luggage from Air France last year...
The journey will begin, in a couple of hours. I'm sitting here with a glass of whisky (Macallan 10 yo cask strength), got everything packed, even did the late-night check in earlier. It is going to be an adventure, though. My parents, who are flying directly from Frankfurt, reserved a seat for me during their own check in. Or so they thought. The nice lady there confirmed, yes, that's just the seat reservation. In fact, she checked me in. Lufthansa just installed a new check in system which refuses to print a boarding card anywhere else than at the airport of check in. Apparently, it doesn't allow to reserve a seat without check in, either. Thus, with less then 90 minutes of switching flights, I also have to get a boarding card in Frankfurt and make sure that they also check my luggage. I cannot imagine how this is supposed to work.
So I complained about the expired KOA Value Kard to DERTOUR on Monday morning and they promised me to send me a valid one to my home address. Instead, they sent a one-time trial card to the travel agency. I just hope that this was the only thing they screwed up... Next time I'm going to book the RV directly at El Monte.
Congratulations! Contrary to FTI last year, you managed to actually send me a KOA Value Kard. You did only marginally better than your competitor, though. The card reads "valid until 12/2007."