7 January 1977 - Friday
We are back on the plane after a mandatory deplaning at Keflavik airport. Not until we got to the “Transit Point” did we realize the reason: the “Transit Point” is a tourist shop with inflated prices. Most people bought postcards.
One interesting thing about Iceland is that it was raining, the first rain we’ve seen in months. Our mandatory deplaning required us to walk about 100 yards (or meters) to the terminal through puddles and slush. There was ice on the ground, but the temperature was 35F (3C). There was no sign of a sunrise even though the time was after 8:00 a.m. We didn’t see daylight until two hours later when we were almost to Scotland.
My first view of England (Alice didn’t get much of one) was of the North Sea Coast from about Edinburgh (which I didn’t see) to Newcastle (which I did).
Our landing was strange: we descended slowly into a cloud bank and when we next saw ground we were right at it. The Luxembourg Airport is not impressive, slightly below the level of the one at Sioux City [Iowa]. The plane stopped over 200 meters from the terminal and we had to walk (again in slush in 31F weather).
Luxembourg
The first thing we did as we entered the terminal was to go through passport inspection, no problem. Then we got luggage -- all there. Then a line for customs. They looked at nothing, just waved us through. I didn’t see them look at anyone’s bags. The rail terminal bus was waiting. We got on even though we had to stand up in the very crowded and hot bus. A woman held Susanna, who fell quite asleep.
A woman named Rachel Fuchs from Purdue whose family (her husband, a physicist) was en route to Paris for sabbatical sat behind us on the plane and talked to us a good bit. She said she had "a friend in Vienna that we should look up” Jane Wiegenstein (She is an Indiana Univ. Grad Student finishing her work in Vienna.)
When we got to the Gare Centrale in Luxembourg City we fell in with a couple named Fred and Judy Pearson and their 3 year-old son Nathaniel (Nat). Fred teaches political science at Univ. of Missouri/St. Louis. We decided to work together to find a hotel. While Alice and Judy stood with the baggage and kids on the Place de la Gare (in front of the rail station), Fred and I walked back and forth looking for the place which provided hotel information. We finally sought out the Hotel de l’Avenue, which is recommended in Europe on $10 A-Day [Frommer, 1976]. We set out to walk the 200 meters in what must have looked like a strange procession. I was pulling the overloaded baggage cart which kept tipping over. Alice was pulling three-wheeled suitcase (one wheel was broken in the baggage on the Icelandic flight).
Fred made the arrangements for the room with the hotel manager, restaurateur and we paid 720 francs each (about $21.00) for a room without any bath available.
After some rest we set out to find a restaurant. We walked over a good bit of the immediate neighborhood but decided to return to our own hotel restaurant to eat. We paid over $12.00 for limited (in variety) but excellent food. Susanna was quite ornery (with just 2 hours sleep in the last 2 days) and soon fell asleep.
People around us began to talk with us. One old gentleman named Jean-Pierre Wiltzius showed us photos of his family in Texas, and of his own travels in the US. An American woman who had lived in Luxembourg 14 years came to talk with us, then her husband. They invited us to see the sights of Luxembourg on Saturday (today) and we agreed to meet them, thus committing ourselves to another day in Luxembourg (our original plan). Their names are Nicolas and Pauline Marx and they have a son, Daniel (12) and a daughter Patricia (15 mos.)
Susanna’s jet-lag confusion showed up during the night (about 12:00 Lux-time) when she seemed to lose all interest in sleep. She, so far, has regained that and is still sleeping at 9:00 a.m.
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