After my college year at Calpoly in San Luis Obispo (SLO) that had ended last summer, I felt that it'd be definitely time to pay a visit to the West and my friends there again. My buddy Martin would join me as he wanted to go back very bad, too.
On January 1, I found a great offer for a total of $565 (= 434EUR then) for the BA flight STR-LHR-SFO on Orbitz which I immediately booked:

May 19 STR-LHR-SFO
June 2/3 SFO-LHR-STR

A couple of weeks before departure date, Martin's girlfriend Manuela spontaneously decided to join us to California, and merely 2 weeks in advance she found an affordable ticket on Delta with the routing STR-ATL-SFO on May 19 and back to Germany already on May 27 after only a week as she had to work.

Saturday May 19, 2007
BA917 STR-LHR
A319 G-EUOG
0700-0755

As I'm always very keen to get a window seat, I got up at 7 the day before to check in online. That worked perfectly for the first leg, but when I wanted to check in for the long haul flight at 11, it did not and I couldn't get my desired window seat so long.
On Saturday then, I got up at 4am and was at STR a little before 5. Check in was kinda slow as there only was one agent who apparently had some trouble with the computer system. The guy at the baggage scanner joked around that I should open my suitcase so we could all have a little beer – he definitely had correctly identified my 5L beer keg as such…
When Martin and I finally got to the check in agent, she was really friendly and talkative and told us, that the second agent was sick and the stand-bye was on her way, however, no worries as the flight would only have a load of 50 passengers of which 42 would be connecting to other flights. On Thursday which had been a holiday in my state, the flight had been way overbooked, she told me, as people were using the long weekend for some getaways via LHR. She also provided me with the information that the route STR-LHR has an average load of 78.9% which seems to be pretty good.
The sad thing I had to stand was there was no window available any more on the fully booked 747 so I had to take an aisle at 49G. On STR-LHR, I had chosen 21F, second last row. This is why I have so many pictures of the first 90 minutes and pretty few ones of the 11h later on.
Security was a breeze and there was no second check which I had had on my last flight to London, however, there was a passport control.


Our ride

Comic style safety demo

LH plane departing to LHR right before us, with fellow A.Netter Contact Air aboard (http://www.airliners.net/discussions/trip_reports/read.main/101178/)

Entering runway 25

Terminals and the new fair

Freeway intersection "Echterdinger Ei"

Great view of the overcast Nagold Valley


We departed on time and took a direct shot out of STR on a surprisingly slightly southern routing over Strasbourg, all my other flights to London had taken a routing over BRU. After Strasbourg, we turned northwards on a straight line into London.


Cabin shot

Our routing

The cabin crew was very nice and professional; we didn't get our all day deli bags I was used to from earlier morning flights, but we still got a beverage and a sandwich. Fortunately, I was right when I chose the cheese (I don't like cheese that much) over the sausage as I have a somewhat biased opinion of British sausage which turned out to be justified: Martin wasn't all too happy with his choice…




Not much to say, clear weather over England, 2 obligatory holdings somewhat southeast of the city, then a common yet always impressive approach on 27R over the heart of London. Here are a couple of photos of the LHR approach to make up for the missing pictures of the SFO approach.


Yup, we are definitely in Britain

Tower Bridge

Buckingham Palace

Royal Albert Hall

Touchdown

Nice touchdown on time and hard braking, that had been it. The giant security check for connecting passengers really sucks, however, it didn't take too long till we were off for 2 hours in the central waiting area of T1 from which our later flight would depart.
I was able to secure myself one of them cozy deck chairs from which I had a nice view of the line-ups at 27L.


Awesome plane!

My view

Me

T1 departures

Then it was time to head down to Gate 52 where already a long line had formed.

BA285 LHR-SFO
747-400 G-BNLU
1050-1340


Our ride

Finally again flying 747

Big gear!

We got on and took our seats; I was totally envious of everybody at the window. Damn you people! ;o) Boarding was soon completed and we were pulled out to start our short way to 27R from which we took off soon after. Departure was pretty bumpy and it took us quite a while to get to FL 310 or so, well, the plane must have been really heavy for sure.


Our route after departure

Michael Peters, the crew chief today, was very proud to announce that this aircraft had a AVOD (audio video on demand) which totally surprised me, I hadn't known that BA had upgraded their system. Now we had 50+ movies on demand, loads of music and TV shows. I was stoked! That was really cool and made me miss my window a little less. Plus it worked just fine, BA's stakes went up even further in my personal evaluation. However, I didn't watch one complete movie as I watched the air show and read (unfortunately, you can't listen to your music play list and watch the air show at the same time, that was a little dissatisfying), but I'd say more than 80% of the people used the in-flight entertainment and seemed to enjoy it.



Currently I take a class "Literature & Crime" at my University of Tuebingen, so I need to read a lot more than I usually would so I had decided that I wanted to make it to page 100 of my book which I finally accomplished:



Lunch

The crew again were very nice, and lunch was really good and filling. After like 2 rounds with beverages, they disappeared somewhat and I had to sneak to the galley a couple of times to get myself some juice or cereal bars. One time, again I went to the galley with some trash to get rid of and guess who was standing in the galley…the captain chatting with one of the f/a's…and guess what he did…he took my trash and put it into the garbage can. So I took two cups of juice…and the captain just pulled away the curtain for me! Wow wow wow, BA definitely rocks and with such employees, they are simply superb! I was really enthused walking back to my seat.

The flight was uneventful, I walked back to the 5th door a couple of times to get some views of the world below but to my silent pleasure, entire Greenland was covered under thick clouds so I didn't miss anything there with my aisle seat. One of the views that I got was of northern Canada, well, nothing really happening down there either. When I walked back yet again to have a look at Edmonton, again clouds didn't allow any sight of it, so I could get back to my seat sure enough of not missing anything at the window.


Still long hours to go

Northern Canada

About an hour before landing, we got a second meal which was pretty good:

11 hours had almost passed and actually it hadn't been to bad. The seat pitch was better than I had suspected (I'm 1.88/6-2) and I could stretch my legs quite a bit.


Almost done

Contrails!

Yup, we are definitely in the USA

Clear Lake

Full house


Finally, we reached the bay area, now however I was really pissed again that I wasn't at a window as the skies were clear and there must have been magnificent views as everybody stared out. We crossed the city, headed downwind to San Jose and turned on final for 31R. This time, our landing (again, precisely on time) was rather rough. We waited for a departing United aircraft before we could cross 28L to get to our gate at the international terminal.


Curtains open for landing

Once more, it was a great sight to see everybody jump up as soon as the seatbelt signs had turned off just to stand the next 5 minutes in the aisle. We were enjoying ourselves sitting in our seats and waiting for the last passengers to leave our section before we finally left the plane. Like in LHR, one thing that struck us was the carpet on the floor in the terminal building, really funny and unthinkable to be found in Germany!

Many words are said about US immigration, again I experienced a very relaxed and easy one. We were allowed to use the counters for US citizens as they were totally empty, the officer was laid back and friendly and after less than a minute, I had entered the USA. Back again, wohoo.
I switched on my cell and immediately received a text message from my sister telling me that VfB Stuttgart had made it and become Deutscher Fussballmeister (German soccer champ). Of course I was happy even though it had been kind of a stupid thing to fly out of STR on the day that they made it the first time in 15 years…well, had I known in January I might have booked the flight for a day later…the celebrations in Stuttgart must have been insane! On the other hand I was in California ;o)
We claimed our bags and went to the train to get to the rental car center which is located a little off the terminals. Especially Budget where we had booked our car had a long line, so it
took us more than an half hour till we were taken care of by a nice agent.

We first got a Subaru Outback which caused some problems so we brought it back and were given a Pontiac Vibe, actually a pretty nice car and 2 categories above the cheapest which we actually had booked.

First night in the Good Nite Inn close to the airport, it was alright and had decent breakfast. The next morning we first wanted to go to the Fisherman's Wharf but couldn't get there as the police had blocked all streets there – a big sort of run was happening, "Bay to Breakers", hella crazy and funny to look at. We got hugs from unknown women, had to see many naked people and witnessed one of the rare occasions that the police tolerate drinking in public – the people loved it!





We passed quite some time there, then drove to Haight Ashbury to get some vibes of the sixties…Later then we went to Fisherman's Wharf for a while, then took our way northwards over the Golden Gate, stopped in Sausalito for some house boat spotting, and finally began our drive to Tahoe where we arrived at around 9.


Golden Gate Bridge

Sacramento, suddenly popping up in the flat valley

We spent the following day around Tahoe and slept another night in our excellent Super 8 Motel for a great price. On Tuesday we spent the main part of the day driving, through the hot valley, Sacramento, Stockton, via San Jose to Santa Cruz. On Highway 50 some 40 miles east of Sacramento, we had lunch in the "St. Pauli Inn", a German-American restaurant where we got ourselves some Wienerschnitzel mit Spaetzle



Well, I have to say, the food was ok and met our expectations, not as good as in Southern Germany though, of course, but who would expect that!?!



Our journey led us through the hot valley to the bay and we finally hit the traffic in San Jose so we decided to have a little pit stop there after all the long driving. We arrived in Santa Cruz at about 8.30 and had to pay more for the motel than we had intended to, oh well, it's Santa Cruz, right!?!
Next day we drove to Gilroy to do some outlet shopping and got ourselves a really nice motel in Seaside by Monterey.


Seaside

On Thursday finally we drove down to SLO, of course we had to take the Highway #1 through Big Sur which was totally covered in clouds.


Highway 1 south of Big Sur

Sea Elephants by San Simeon

Just before our final destination, the sun broke through so it got warm again. We immediately drove to my friend Raymond's house and soon after right down to the weekly highlight in SLO – farmer's market when everybody's on the street and there is such a great atmosphere.


Farmer's Market in SLO

It felt so good to be back and we would have tons of fun hanging out with good ol friends. We also drove to Paso Robles for a great car show, went to Pismo for some beach experience, went shopping and shooting, and hung out with cool people.


Car show in Paso Robles

SLO from top of Bishop Peak

Pismo Beach

The weather was ok, pretty chilly most of the time but we were used to that kind of climate on the Central Coast:

Low clouds


One week passed by way too fast and we had to drive back to the bay to catch our plane. We left SLO at around 8.30 and arrived in SFO at 12. I already had checked in online the day before and gotten my window seats so we just had to drop off our bags and could go through security which was not very busy, same as the entire international terminal on this Saturday afternoon. We had to pass a couple of hours which I used to do a little spotting, the entire range of domestic airlines are present at SFO and I found the intersecting arrival and departure runways to be quite ineffective and causing long holdings for departing aircrafts.


Marine layer as seen from the 101

Big roads by the airport

International traffic

Beautiful international terminal

Our plane

Domestic traffic. It's kinda funny that Delta introduces new colors while the current ones aren't installed on all their ships!

Virgin came in a little late, however, left before us.

Beautiful plane!

Saturday June 2
BA284 SFO-LHR
747-400 G-CIVC
1650-1050

When I boarded the plane, I was stopped by a super friendly TSA officer who wanted to check my backpack, hmm, what did he expect to find after the security check? Whatever, he just had some brief looks and then whished me a great flight. Our plane was almost full today with only some free seats. We pushed out a little after time and made our taxi down to 28L. The video system caused some problems so we got a manual safety demonstration. After an arriving AA 763 we were good to go and thundered down the runway. Just after the take off, we passed the thick marine layer that covered the city completely, so not sights of the Golden Gate unfortunately:





The plane made a right turn and I was able to spot Alcatraz island:



Marine layer in the bay

We made our way to the East, via Martinez/Concord:



Alternative energy in California





Suburbia of Elk Grove south of Sacramento.

Lake Tahoe

Donner Lake with I80 near Tahoe


Then our plane made a strange turn to the south, probably to avoid turbulences. Unfortunately, this plane did not feature the AVOD so there were just 16 or so channels that played some movies. I finally decided to watch "Wild Hogs" with John Travolta, one of the worst movies I've seen recently, totally awful and silly.
Our seat neighbor was Sally, nurse travelling to Istanbul. She wasn't very hungry so I could pretty much all her food which I gladly accepted as I was basically starving. The food wasn't bad but just not enough for a 10 hours flight.


Dinner, beef casserole

Usually I can't sleep onboard of airplanes, this time I finally succeeded and got some nice rest so I totally missed the sunrise and only woke up some 2 hours before landing. We made landfall near Shannon (overcast) and got our breakfast, again quite tasty.


Fast!

Routing

Breakfast

Even though we had some strong tail winds, we didn't manage to reduce our delay and arrived about 20 minutes late in LHR after only one holding.



Sights of the city weren't that great this day as it was kinda hazy plus basically the same story as on the STR-LHR flight.


Back in Britain

Other traffic

Back in LHR

AC is huge in LHR!

Deboarding

Unusual sight in LHR

It was the first time for me to deboard the plane via stairs and buses which took forever so the people standing in the aisle had to stand even longer We were almost the last ones to leave the plane and were brought to the bus arrival of T1. Security check didn't take too long today and again we headed towards the waiting area of T1 with its deck chairs. I felt the short night and just hang around watching the traffic on 27L while Martin read.
When it was about time for our last leg, no gate appeared on the screen and soon after it showed a delay, bah. I was really tired and exhausted now and just wanted to be home. About an hour later, we were finally given gate 28 and had to go through yet another security check, only busy with the Stuttgart passengers.

Sunday June 3
BA920 LHR-STR
A319
1545-1825 (about an hour delayed)

The sky was pretty hazy and cloudy so no good views out of the window.


Clouds

Routing

We got our beverage and a pack of seeds and soon after I fell asleep again and only awoke about 20 minutes before landing. Still the sky was hazy and didn't allow good pictures.


Back in STR

We landed from the West on runway 07 and taxied to our stand, STR not busy at all on this Sunday evening:



Last view of our plane

Yay, VfB Stuttgart!

I was welcomed by my family, and that was it. A great trip was over and life had me back.

Hope you enjoyed reading my TR.

[Edited 2007-06-04 15:58:48]