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Not a bad stunt.


fygjam

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QANTAS retired the last of its 747s, ahead of schedule due to Covid-19.

As it headed off to the Mojave desert it flew a rather strange route.

The flight path, as it was seen on Flight Radar.

For the uninitiated, the QANTAS logo.

Qantas-logo-2016-640x480.png

Aerial sign-writing in a 747.

 

 

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I suppose there will be a few nostalgic tears shed for the last 747  but not by me.

My 10 hour KLM flight from Schiphol to Bangkok in a 747 was the most uncomfortable flight of my life due to the seat feeling like my ass was sitting on a plank of wood. It put me off KLM for years.

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4 hours ago, Jambo said:

I suppose there will be a few nostalgic tears shed for the last 747  but not by me.

My 10 hour KLM flight from Schiphol to Bangkok in a 747 was the most uncomfortable flight of my life due to the seat feeling like my ass was sitting on a plank of wood. It put me off KLM for years.

Try an A380, you'll think the 747 felt like you were sat in Tommy Dee's Shackletons of Bolton high seat chair.

 

Edited by bexwell
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10 hours ago, Jambo said:

I suppose there will be a few nostalgic tears shed for the last 747  but not by me.

My 10 hour KLM flight from Schiphol to Bangkok in a 747 was the most uncomfortable flight of my life due to the seat feeling like my ass was sitting on a plank of wood. It put me off KLM for years.

That was (and still is) KLM, not the B747, which I think is way to noisy (prefer A340 and A380 where four engined planes are concerned, much more quiet). I am Dutch and I prefer to fly just about any decent airline above KLM (and no, Ryan Air doesn't qualify as decent).

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12 hours ago, Freee!! said:

That was (and still is) KLM, not the B747, which I think is way to noisy (prefer A340 and A380 where four engined planes are concerned, much more quiet). I am Dutch and I prefer to fly just about any decent airline above KLM (and no, Ryan Air doesn't qualify as decent).

I have nothing but good memories of my visits to Holland being mostly to Amsterdam. I found the locals to be warm and generous and great hosts. It helps absolutely everybody speaks good English.

One trip was a long sporting weekend as the insurance company I worked for was Dutch owned. Although I had retired from playing football a couple of year's before I played for the Scottish company electing to play sweeper and hoping I did not have to do too much running. Fat chance as we got stuffed by a young Dutch team at a magnificent stadium in Den Haag.

I was not supposed to eat any spicy food as I was in recovery from a very bad infection I had picked up from bad water used in a stew on holiday in Spain. The night before the football match the Dutch hosts nuked me by hosting an Indonesian "Rijstaffel" dinner which is multiple small dishes all hotter than the one before. I don't know how I lasted the coach to the ground as when it arrived I spent the next 20 minutes or so on the bog. I played 90 minutes football virtually dehydrated. That was my last full football match. 😀

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"Rijsttafel" (rice table) is a typical (colonial) Dutch interpretation of Chinese and Indonesian cooking and yes, Indonesian is rather spicy.

The one problem I have with Amsterdam is that I get addressed in English and people react very surprised when I answer in Dutch (or German if I think they deserve it, that will leave them totally flabbergasted).

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4 hours ago, Freee!! said:

"Rijsttafel" (rice table) is a typical (colonial) Dutch interpretation of Chinese and Indonesian cooking and yes, Indonesian is rather spicy.

The one problem I have with Amsterdam is that I get addressed in English and people react very surprised when I answer in Dutch (or German if I think they deserve it, that will leave them totally flabbergasted).

I  apologise but generally speaking, we English address every nation in the world in English and consider it is their fault if they do not understand. It took me five years to finally get thrown out of my French class having achieved 11% in the mock final exam. Only three in the class gained a pass mark and the lowest mark was 5% which scooped the pool we had for who would come last.

Peronally, Holland is my favorite European country and I believe that the Dutch and the English have a fine affinity for one another.

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12 hours ago, Jambo said:

I  apologise but generally speaking, we English address every nation in the world in English and consider it is their fault if they do not understand.

No problem, Dutch isn't a language but a secret code foreigners aren't supposed to learn anyway 😉

13 hours ago, Jambo said:

It took me five years to finally get thrown out of my French class having achieved 11% in the mock final exam. Only three in the class gained a pass mark and the lowest mark was 5% which scooped the pool we had for who would come last.

The only abomination approaching the level of an Englishman trying to speak French is a Frenchman trying to speak English.

13 hours ago, Jambo said:

Peronally, Holland is my favorite European country and I believe that the Dutch and the English have a fine affinity for one another.

The Netherlands please, Holland is just part of the country (two out of twelve provinces, North Holland and South Holland). And I agree on the affinity.

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2 hours ago, maipenrai said:

I'd love to visit Amsterdam some day - the Dutch and Canadians also share an affinity, mostly due to the events of World War II; my own father spent a lot of time in the Netherlands during the winter of 1944/45. 

In that case you are likely to have family here as well. But there is so much more here in the Netherlands than just Amsterdam.

Edited by Freee!!
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11 hours ago, Freee!! said:

No problem, Dutch isn't a language but a secret code foreigners aren't supposed to learn anyway 😉

The only abomination approaching the level of an Englishman trying to speak French is a Frenchman trying to speak English.

The Netherlands please, Holland is just part of the country (two out of twelve provinces, North Holland and South Holland). And I agree on the affinity.

My apology - just showing my ignorance. 😀

Edited by Jambo
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13 hours ago, Freee!! said:

No problem, Dutch isn't a language but a secret code foreigners aren't supposed to learn anyway 😉

 

Knowing Danish, German and English I find Dutch relatively easy to understand - atleast in writing. Spoken I prefer it if the speaker talks very clearly and slowly, with Gronings being the easiest dialect to get a slight grasp of.

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On 7/29/2020 at 3:12 AM, Jambo said:

I  apologise but generally speaking, we English address every nation in the world in English and consider it is their fault if they do not understand. It took me five years to finally get thrown out of my French class having achieved 11% in the mock final exam. Only three in the class gained a pass mark and the lowest mark was 5% which scooped the pool we had for who would come last.

Peronally, Holland is my favorite European country and I believe that the Dutch and the English have a fine affinity for one another.

I was kicked out of French lessons when I fell asleep in a mock CSE exam and dribbled across the answer paper.

Where I was stationed in RAF Germany,Bruggen,half the airfield was in no-mans land,come out the camp gate & immediately you hit the border post.So if you turned right you went to Germany or left into the Netherlands & Roermond where everyone was very pro British and spoke English.We all spent a lot of drunken time in Roermond!

Also we used to do squadron brewery visits to the Heineken & Amstel breweries in Amsterdam,they used to get very messy.

When I worked in the ME I always tried to fly KLM on my rare visits back to the UK,they'd give you a free hotel for a night on the way in,usually the Krasnapolsky,which ain't bad.

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On 7/30/2020 at 11:49 AM, coxyhog said:

When I worked in the ME I always tried to fly KLM on my rare visits back to the UK,they'd give you a free hotel for a night on the way in,usually the Krasnapolsky,which ain't bad.

There are a couple of reasons a lot of companies put people in Krasnapolsky. It is a well known and good hotel pretty near Amsterdam Central Station (well within walking distance) in a (for foreigners at least) pretty safe*) neighbourhood as it is right at the edge of the red light district.

 

*) A lot of not so nice people get upset and take action if petty criminals bother tourists

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On 7/30/2020 at 7:26 AM, Lirchenfeld said:

Knowing Danish, German and English I find Dutch relatively easy to understand - atleast in writing. Spoken I prefer it if the speaker talks very clearly and slowly, with Gronings being the easiest dialect to get a slight grasp of.

For most Dutch the Gronings dialect is the most difficult to understand (and only because Frisian is a recognised language 😉 ).

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8 hours ago, Freee!! said:

There are a couple of reasons a lot of companies put people in Krasnapolsky. It is a well known and good hotel pretty near Amsterdam Central Station (well within walking distance) in a (for foreigners at least) pretty safe*) neighbourhood as it is right at the edge of the red light district.

 

*) A lot of not so nice people get upset and take action if petty criminals bother tourists

On a brewery trip in the 70's we had a guy knifed in the RLD and in the 80's I can remember getting hassled by drug dealers around Dam Square.

Was still a great place though.

Edited by coxyhog
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4 hours ago, coxyhog said:

On a brewery trip in the 70's we had a guy knifed in the RLD and in the 80's I can remember getting hassled by drug dealers around Dam Square.

Was still a great place though.

It cleaned up a lot since that time, knifings are pretty rare. Drug dealers will always be around there as a lot of tourists come for that kind of thing.

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