Friday, September 2, 2011

Poulard?

What is poulard?  Twice now I have been offered it on Lufthansa and when I said I would have chicken, in was told, no, it is poulard.  I asked if it was turkey and was told kind of.  So if you know what poulard is, please tell me.  To be honest, it was like a dry chicken breast.  Oh the joys of mystery meat coupled with airline food.

Overall, Lufthansa isn't bad to fly with.  They have really good blankets and pillows - probably the best I have ha so far.  I mean who has feather pillows?  And I am not talking about upfront either, I am talking back in economy - yes we have feather pillows and yes I do fly economy. :-). Their lounge in Lagos leaves a little to be desired.  It is 3 floors with the 3rd floor being an enclosed smoking room, however the smoke still managed to waft down to the main - ick!  It was still a much better place to hang out rather than in the terminal since I had 3 1/2 hours to wait from when i arrived at the airport. Then when I was walking to my gate, I went past the BA lounge and it looked pretty posh - Lufthansa definitely has the ghetto lounge!  They have also cheaped out on their E90 - no seat back TVs - what gives?!

So my flight was leaving at 9:50pm and I left a good 7 hours before - crazy I know, considering i am the girl who likes to show up just as the plane is boarding!  Not here i didn't!  However in Lagos you never know what traffic is going to be like and today it took us about 3 hours to get there.  Traffic was a little crazy but I guess it can be worse.  Then when you get to the airport it is like a quasi-organized chaos.  First you get your bag weighed, then you get your passport and ticket checked and once you have done that you go up to the counter, all whilst moving in and amongst a maze of people and different boxed off lanes.  You don't decide where to go yourself, someone tells you and there are people everywhere.

At the boarding gate you go through another round of security.  I am telling you that the security here is more stringent than at Heathrow or anywhere in the US.  After another round of ticket and passport checks, they search your carry- on again and then you get a full pat down and when I say full, I mean full!  She patted down the girls and  lady bits!  Only felt slightly violated. :-). Nope, can't say that in was hiding anything there.

Our flight was almost an hour delayed leaving Lagos - something to do with luggage. Fortunately I have my iPad and was able to keep on watching the last season of the Deadliest Catch, which I had started earlier in the evening in the lounge. I really don't know how people travel without one. I managed to get about 21/2 hours of not good sleep on my flight to Frankfurt and we only landed 15 minutes late, which was good considering. I then caught a 6:45am flight into London City Centre which I much prefer to the he'll that they call Heathrow, although the immigration lady sure was not chipper at 730 in the morning and had a lot of questions. Remember lady, I am from one of your former colonies, we have the same queen!

I have a wedding up in Newcastle on the week, the whole reason behind the trip and the plan was to take the train from London around mid-day with my friends Susan and Judy. Luckily for me, Susan was staying with her husbands aunt so I took the tube up to there - I am very good with the tube ;-) and was able to take a shower and feel like a human again after my over night flight and before we hoped on the train. Overall a fairly uneventful trip up north. The wedding is tomorrow and we head back for London on Sunday and back to Calgary on Monday where this adventure will end.

I still have some more tom post on Nigeria which I hope to get around to by the end of the weekend. Hope everyone has a great labour day weekend!

2 comments:

JB said...

Sounds like you had a good visit with Carley and I can hardly wait till you get somewhere you can share some photos with us old retired folks.

JB said...

pou·lard also pou·larde (p-lärd)
n.
A young hen that has been spayed for fattening.