(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) Ontario, California is a quiet, backwater airport these days. Many vacancies line the concourse and the employees get to go home early on most days. Long term parking is about 100 yards farther away from the terminal than the short term parking.
It’s kind of an inauspicious place to start such a long journey. We’re looking ahead to twenty or more hours of travel (which would eventually stretch to thirty), a quarter way around the world, three flights, an ocean, and two continents before we get to our destination.
Still, the easiness beats the hectic pace of LAX and, for once, the price is actually a little lower, a rarity around here.
The flight is on time and three hours later, we’re eating at Fuddrucker’s in Dallas/Fort Worth Airport waiting for our next connection to London.
The American 777 pushes back a little early but runway construction puts us at 27th in line for takeoff and suddenly we’re delayed an hour and a half, spending it all on the taxiway in tiny, economy seats. That's all before the nine hours until we land again in London.
A mad rush at Heathrow and a last minute gate change put our last leg on British Airways in doubt but somehow we make it and we’re at Berlin’s Tegel Airport a little over an hour later.
Language barriers and a lack of wheelchair accessible taxis lead us to giving up on that option and taking the public transit bus to Berlin’s Haupbanhof to the U-Bahn for the final trip and a two-block walk to Lindemann’s Hotel on Potsdamer Strasse, lugging our luggage the entire way.
Video of our room in Berlin
About 30 hours after leaving, we’re finally checked in to our room, a good sized family room with two twin beds pushed together and a queen size sleeper sofa. It’s not technically accessible but it is more wheelchair friendly than many accessible rooms back in the states.
There’s a lift, step-free access to the room, doorways wide enough for our chair, and a walk-in shower with no step that works fine as a roll-in shower with the little stool they gave us as a bath chair.
We’re pooped, grumpy, and grungy. After an easy dinner at a nearby Turkish café, we gladly turn in for the night to rest up for our adventure.
The hard part’s over, now it’s time to explore which we’ll do in the next chapter of this latest adventure.
Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved
Pictures by Letty Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved
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