German Kezboards

So the standard computer kezboard in Germanz is different from the U.S. standard. Several of the kezs are in different spaces and mz computeräs kezboard has extra kezs for the letters the umlauted a, o, and u. Or Ä Ö and Ü and for the Alt Gr key that works like a reverse shift, for those letter keys that also have other szmbols on them.

I will admit that having the umlauted characters on my work computer is nice, particularly during my woeful attempts to write in German so that I don’t have to copy and paste from the character map and I am getting used to the change, now that I’m done typing like I would on an American keyboard, I’ve only had to correct about three quarters of the letters and symbols that are different, a great improvement over the first time I used a German computer last week.

What I’m having the most difficulty with is the @ and € signs, located under the Q and E keys respectively, especially the @. I suppose I will eventually get accustomed to the “Alt Gr” key, but for right now I’m getting approximately equal results of “ (quotation marks are above the 2) Q (from hitting the shift instead and the correct @ when typing in e-mail addresses for anything. Particularly when I have to type e-mail addresses that I am familiar with since I used to be able to key them in without particularly thinking about which keys my fingers were hitting. I’ll get used to it, hopefully without destroying my ability to type on an American keyboard in the process.

Air India

I’ve been having some internet connection issues that are going to continue to interfere with my ability to post, but here is my promised review of Air India.

I chose to fly to Frankfurt on Air India because it was cheap and I figured I could sleep through most of it as the flight was scheduled to leave Chicago at 7:05 pm and arrive in Frankfurt at 10:05 am, which when you factor in the time difference is a 8 hour nonstop flight.

You might have noticed that I said scheduled. The flight was delayed for nearly three hours, which was annoying partially because if I had known it was going to be delayed for that long I might have spent more time dawdling with my parents before going through security and less time waiting on my own. The break down of the delay was one hour before we boarded and the rest after boarding, for a total of ten hours on the plane.

I will say that the flight attendants and captain were very good about handing out snacks and providing updates as to our status (usually, that we were still delayed but people were working on the problem). However, the whole set up was a little more cramped than I remember my last experience flying, so it was a little difficult to get comfortable. At first I played with the rather nifty touch-screen on the back of my seat, but it locked up before the flight was underway and I was left to realize exactly how crowded my space was as I tried to get at a book in the bag I had stowed underneath the seat in front of me.

Once we got underway, and I was finally able to close the window shade I discovered that most of my fellow passengers intended to stay up for a while longer, even though it was now after 10 pm local time and I was ready to sleep. I woke up not terribly long afterwards to find that dinner was being served and to discover that I don’t care for airplane Indian food. The rice and bread roll were fine, the rest of it was too spicy for traveling. However, since breakfast, served some four or five hours later, was a wonderful croissant with butter and strawberry jam I am going to say that the problem was likely as much to do with my picky eating habits as anything else.

At some point after dinner and the time when I was able to fall asleep (and make the note to remember my ear plugs and eye mask the next time I fly overnight) they finally did dim the lights. The next time I woke up, it was a sunny day in France and time for breakfast. I will also note that the airline gets kudos for frequent offering of various beverages. After breakfast was served they had a cart with what I think was several options for tea and coffee, this didn’t do me any good since I don’t drink either one, but it was still a nice thing for them to do.

The flight was otherwise unremarkable. My personal opinion on Air India is that the in-flight service was good and I would fly them again if they offered the lowest ticket price and a convenient flight time, but that I wouldn’t necessarily pick an Air India flight over another similarly priced ticket.