LL-L "Travels" 2010.01.06 (04) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 06 January 2010 - Volume 04
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Travels"

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Delectables
> I hope you'll have a good time in Las Vegas! Without wanting to offend
anyone, I have to add that it's anything but my favorite town. Good thing:
check out the restaurants in gambling dens, because many of them have great
food for lower prices, the idea being to get you in the door so you're
tempted to gamble.

I'm not there yet. It will be my 3d time for the town with the
famous "strip". For shopping I prefer though the more standard US shopping
street downtown (Fremont St).
The first time I was in LV, was in the week Roy almost lost his head in the
Mirage. That was breaking news on all channels at the time.

Momentarily I'm still midway at O'Hare.

Nowadays controlls are tightened.

At Brussels one has to be 3 to 4 hrs ahead for AA checkin. Actually this
allows the handler to do big savings, since he rents less desks, spreading
out the queue over 4+ hrs. I was there
3.5 hrs ahead and had to queue 90 minutes for interview and checkin.
The pasport controll went smoothly.
The security controll for the B-pier (non-Schengen) just toke 15 minutes of
queuing.
The second security controll for departure to the US (AA, Delta,
Continnental, Jet Airways, United, all leaving around 10 am in the morning)
has been reinstalled. It includes physical check of the content of the
carry-on luggage + manual body search The queue in front of me was about 225
people, but quite some people got priority and bypassed the line. I queued
for about 60 minutes. The check is at one of 14 tables, organized in
parallel.
Transit passengers, who missed an interview at checkin, were sent to gate 30
for an interview session.
About 25 names were called at the departure gate 37, for them to return and
present themselves at first for an interview at gate 30.

There is an enormous difference in mentality between Europeans and
Americans. The longer it takes, the more Europeans become nervous, the
longer it takes, Americans realize they contribute more and better to the
war against terrorism and the happier they are because of their personal
contribution.

The boarding on the AA flight to Chicago was delayed by one hour, because of
a late arrival of the plane.
The flight went smoothly. No early closure of the flight tracking on TV, no
early closing of the lavatories. even one of the pilots had a walk, with a
chat with some passengers.

At O'Hare one arrives at the International terminal. Pasport controll went
smootly. My checked luggage is allways the last on the belt (a law of
nature), Custom controll went smoothly. Nobody could tell me at what
terminal I had to be for LV, but in the train, AA was listed for Terminal 3.
Security check here took about 30 minutes of queuing.

Fortunately I had not ticketed for the connection within about 2 hrs. I
would have missed it.
While taking a 5 hrs connection time, I have some spare time for sending
this message from within terminal 3 at O'Hare.
I hope we will get in the air before it starts snowing, as announced for
this evening.

Regards,
Roger

•

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