It's a good thing we had the time in hand that we did. Everything had been going well. Well, I guess, except for the inability to get ourselves away from the curb when Marisa dropped us off. I grabbed one of those luggage carts (didn't have to use my "wafer"). I grabbed a bad one, though. It's one of those things where you either lift up, or push down on a handle to release the brake. It is far easier to push down and push forward than it is to lift up and push forward. I was stuck having to lift up and push because pushing down didn't release the brake to the right rear wheel.
We were stuck at the curb for a good five minutes trying to stack things well enough to just move--starting, stopping, losing bags to the ground after hitting the small lip at the curb (including my oversized laptop in a minimally padded case--but it appears to be working as that's what I'm typing on now). It probably took no time at all, but it felt ridiculous. The cart kept wanting to turn right (because the right brake wouldn't release). We finally did make it to the ticket counter to check our bags. Linda was sitting in the wheelchair at this point. It gained us a bunch of goodwill from the ticket counter attendant, Gustavo.
Gustavo, British Airways
I have to say, seriously, that the British Airways experience, at least from my point of view, was outstanding. The bags were checked easily with no issues. They didn't even measure the personal carry-on, the allowable size of which had just been reduced by the airline. They didn't charge for the bike box. Bikes alone cost us $800 in 2010 when we flew Swiss Air. We were out of there in no time. On to security, quick through that and then plenty of time to relax and eat lunch. Perfect.
Except I didn't get through security.
I had been worried because I was carrying two trekking poles that Linda had bought on the recommendation of Dr. Tai. They are long, tubular, and have a semi-pointy end. I asked the first TSA agent I saw about the poles, hoping to head off a problem. He grabbed one, went and asked a superior, and came back and said, "no, these are fine".
They chose my bag to be examined, thinking that there would be no problem since the poles were already cleared. I had a torque wrench to use on my bike that I didn't want lost so I packed it in my carry-on. The TSA guy picks it up, looks at the case, opens it. Asks, "what is this?" I tell him what it is. He excuses himself to ask about it, while I'm still thinking "no big deal, it's just a torque wrench and a very small one at that".
After a couple of minutes he comes back and says, "you can't take this on board." It's too long, apparently. It was 8 inches, it couldn't be more than 6, or something like that. I ask for a challenge, actually thinking it might make a difference. He brings over his superior, his superior looks at it and says "it's too long". He added, "they put planes together with those things." At first I thought he was trying to make an interesting point. Then I thought he was trying to be funny. Then I realized, "he's serious".
Crap.
So I either leave it, or I go back to try to check it in. Thank goodness we had plenty of time. I left Linda on the good side of the security check, while I ventured back out into it to the BA ticket counter. Gustavo was still there, bless him, and he said, "no problem, we'll just bring the bag you checked back up and you can put the item in it and we'll send it back down. No problem. It's going to take 15-20 minutes for them to bring it up, but no problem."
Cool!
Good thing we were there way early. That was about 2:20 pm. At 2:45 I asked to make sure it was coming. They said it was. At 3:00 I asked again. "It's coming." At about 3:10 I was going to give up because I still had to go back through security and get to the gate and I was getting nervous. Just as I was about to do that, up walks the ramp worker with the bag (I have realized talking to other travelers, and looking at this guy, that in all your travels, if you fly, the one group of people you have to worry about are the ramp workers). They are the ones that are going to lose or damage luggage. I used to think it was the TSA that would ruin luggage during inspections, etc., . . . but the gov't farms that out, thank goodness.
We changed seats a couple of weeks ago in view of Linda's knee injury, thinking the more legroom the better. The best row for that is the front row of each section that faces up against the cabin dividers. The risk was, this is also the row where they put the babies.
Sure enough:
But you know what? The kid was a fabulous little traveler. He fussed just a tiny bit early on, but he must have slept for a good 8 hours of the 10 hour flight. He was on his way to meet his grandparents in England (dad's side). Oh, by the way, the British Airways first class looks awesome.
So 10 hours to fill. . . how to do it? The airline had a fabulous selection of newer movies, not just one, or two that they used to show, regardless of what you wanted to watch. Age of Ultron! That took up 2 1/2 hours. I listened to a little over 2 hours of "The Martian" audiobook. The rest of the time was spent watching news shows, sports shows, some music, and a whole lot of this stuff:
I get mesmerized by this series of screens. It will scroll between this one (my personal favorite) and several other screens showing distance to destination, the time of day at destination/origin, out side temp, altitude, etc.
Linda en route
Classic airline cuisine. As much as I liked British Airways, no airline has spent enough time improving airline food.
The changeover at Heathrow was trouble-free. Linda's injury got us plenty of attention. We received a private ride through the bowels of Heathrow
Heathrow is a zoo. . . . It was incredibly busy and so many people from all over the world--the number of languages heard was pretty cool. Again, Linda's injury came into play and the security attendants pushed us through to the front of the line every time: from the passport check, to the security search. Through like a breeze.
Once in Geneva, we received good treatment again in getting Linda out of the plane and gathering bags. Everything arrived on the same flight (unlike in 2010) and my bike box was in one piece (and when checked on Thursday morning, everything inside was fine as well). And we got another free luggage carrier thanks to the guy helping us out.
The one problem we DID have once in Geneva was retrieving the auto rental and getting out of the airport. The guy helping us out with Linda and the baggage asked if we needed the "Swiss or French sector" and I messed up by answering "Swiss". After I called for the car (which was a joke since the guy couldn't understand me, and I couldn't understand him) I found out we were nowhere near where we needed to be, so we had to huff it over to the French sector. By this time we'd graduated to my being able to push the luggage cart with one hand and Linda in her wheelchair with the other.
The Renault guy said to meet him out front of the French sector, I looked for what looked like an "arrivals" door, but all I could find was a door to a parking lot (Renault's Eurodrive program is run out of an office 4 kms from the airport). I finally had to grab a guy taking his smoke break from his airport job and ask him to speak, in French, to this dude that I was trying to find and who was looking for me. That helped. The e-kit burner phones I bought for the trip are garbage, by the way. Barely functional. I turned out we'd passed each other in the parking area. I'd been asking how I'd recognize him, what he'd be driving, but he couldn't understand me. His car didn't say "Renault" on it, and it wasn't even a Renault. The company he works must be under contract rather than direct Renault employees. I don't know how long it would have taken to find each other if I hadn't interrupted that dude from his smoke break.
Turns out the young man from Renault was very nice and we could understand each other much better without the phone interfering. I tried to pay close attention to how we got to the pick-up location as I'd have to drive back by myself to pick up Linda. I forgot to bring my Garmin with me, but I also knew that the Renault came with GPS so, if I needed it, I figured, I'd just use that. Plus, it was only 4 kms--about 2.5 miles. How hard could that be?
I did make one wrong turn, got panicky, than thought I'd pull over and try the car's GPS. It does have GPS for France, which is great, but the airport was in Switzerland. I was less than 2 miles from the nearest airport and the Tom Tom unit wouldn't list it. I couldn't figure out how to change countries, if it can even be done at all, so I gave up and backtracked the way I'd come and started over. That worked. I recognized where I'd gone wrong earlier and once I corrected that, it was almost a straight shot back to the airport.
That's when the real fun began. For close to 90 minutes I tried to find the front doors to the "new arrivals" terminal. I must have gone around and around 2 dozen times. I knew which building it had to be, but couldn't figure out how to get down to it. I knew it was on a lower level, but I'd try one way, find out I was either in a dead end, or a parking lot, or at a gas station, or at the departures terminal. It was crazy. Each time I'd go past and end up where I didn't want to be, I'd have to go back around and try again. I finally saw some signs indicating "arrivals" which pointed to the left, but there was no follow-up signage to assist. I went around probably 3-4 more times before I parked out where all the tourist buses were picking up their clientele,and ran in to pick up poor Linda, who had been sitting in her little wheelchair for an hour and a half wondering what had become of me.
By the time we left for the car we discovered that it was easiest for me to push the cart and for Linda to simply grab onto the cart with one hand. Now we know for the return trip. So that was good.
We had hoped to drive to the hotel and have dinner by about 7 p.m. We ended up arriving at 8:45. We knew that the kitchen closed at 9, and they were gracious enough to not be too peeved with our later arrival. It was a long, long day.
In Annecy early Thursday.
Thursday--wake at 9, breakfast, build up my bike, dink around, go to the bike shop to get some CO2 cartridges, headed down to Annecy to look around and have lunch, make a run to the grocery store. I rode around Lake Annecy in the afternoon just to loosen up, about 25 miles. They have superb trails almost all the way around the lake.
Friday--Grand Colombier
