Friday 12 May 2017

In Dallas...Fort Worth

The flight from Nashville to Dallas was pleasant, although I felt at one stage prior to take-off that the plane might disintegrate before it reached the runway. The American Airlines plane, probably a Boeing or an Airbus, I never looked, shuddered on every turn and squeaked and clanked its way to the strip but eventually took off without incident and I later enjoyed a cup of tea and a small bag of mini pretzels mid-flight. Around one hour and 40 minutes later we started our smooth descent into Dallas Fort Worth, through the cloud and on to the tarmac. I took the Skylink to terminal D and now I'm close to gate D15 from where I'll depart this great country en route to London Heathrow Terminal Five.

We had some rain last night in Nashville, but guess what? It was warm rain. Never experienced that before. I was in the Tailgate Brewery enjoying the old Peanut Butter Milk Stout and as I left and headed back to my hotel down came the rain. The warm rain. It was hot in Nashville. The temperature reached the early eighties, but finally the weather broke and it rained quite heavily through the night.

Inside Pizza Vino at Dallas Forth Worth airport, 
In the morning the roads were damp but there was a freshness in the air as I walked down to Barista Parlor for breakfast. But you know all about that – see previous post if you don't. Here at Dallas Fort Worth airport I've just had a late lunch of a pizza and a Cabernet, all very nice, but slightly off kilter. The place, Pizza Vino, was billing itself as an upmarket pizza restaurant – I had to take an elevator ride to reach it – so my expectations were high, but unfortunately they were dashed on the rocks of crap. For a start there were tables that needed a wipe-down, there were napkins left on the floor, there were laminated menus and to make matters worse, for some reason they didn't price their drinks. This annoyed me. I ordered a cabernet, assuming the price would be reasonable, but when I came to order another one (the pizza – proscuitto and ham – took an age to arrive and I was bored) I thought I'd ask how much. I was told $14. That's a lot of money for a glass of wine, even if it did arrive in a little glass carafe.

Oddly, my bill was only around $30. So I gave the obligatory tip, chewed the fat with the waiter, a really nice guy, who told me that to drive from Dallas to where his folks live takes 12 hours – and they live in Texas! Last night somebody told me that Texas was the second biggest state in the USA, next to Alaska. Imagine that, though, to get home by car takes 12 hours and you don't even cross a state line.

I'm not too far from the gate and I've found a power point, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this, but I felt it was important to write something from Dallas. I've got about 30 minutes before it's time to board and then I've got a nine-hour flight to look forward to; I can't say I'm happy about that, but what else can I do?

The television is screening something about Trump and the firing of FBI director Comey, but hold on, somebody's called my name over the airport intercom, that's the second time. I'd better go and see what they want. Nothing else to report anyway, I'm just sitting here. Outside it's blue skies and cloud and people are milling around as they do at airports. I'd better go, see you back in the UK.

I post a lot of hotel and restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor, which can be found by clicking here.

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