Trip Report: Geometric Food and Cheese Pretzels for breakfast in the Lufthansa Senator Lounge
Like my trip out to California via Frankfurt a couple weeks before, the trip through immigration was blissfully short, and then it was on to the Schengen-zone Senator Lounge. I put my name down for a shower room, was given a pager, and walked around the lounge checking out the breakfast fare.
I didn’t want to sit down to eat just yet, since the pager could beep at any minute. Shower always comes first, after landing from the US!
I really like the shower rooms in the Senator lounge - they’re compact, but still roomy enough for a larger bench to put down luggage, and plenty of sink counter space to spread toiletries out.
The shower itself is around a wall, so no need for any shower curtain or glass to keep the water out. A full-length mirror is also a useful touch.
After the shower and change of clothes, it was time for breakfast. I noticed that a lot of the food that Lufthansa served was geometric! Cylindrical “rosti” hash brown potato disk. Circular cold cuts, triangular cheese. Cylindrical sausage. Triangular bienenstich bee sting cake. Even the fruit was geometric. And to top it all off, that delicious cheese pretzel again and a mango smoothie in Lufthansa brand equity yellow color. I loved this breakfast!
And because I’m a bit of a glutton, and I was still “on holiday,” I did pick up a slice of chocolate bundt cake. It was tender and moist, and studded with little chocolate chips. Somehow I had been dreaming of making a chocolate bundt cake when I got back to Spain, and here it was, right in the lounge.
After such delicious food, it was a bit sad to leave the Senator Lounge. When I got to the gate, I noticed something rather odd. An easy-to-miss sign showing the right-angle shapes that the regular and priority lines should have. What?! First of all, who is going to read this sign? Second of all, why does the priority line cross right in front of the agent desk? Why doesn’t it go parallel next to the regular line? Anyway, we all eventually made it on board the Lufthansa A320neo bound for Valencia.
In flight, there was once again a choice of cheese sandwich or cake. And once again, Lufthansa impressed me by having yet again a different cheese sandwich from all of my other flights! This one had Leerdammer Dutch cheese, with arugula pesto, and pickles sandwich between sliced rye bread. It was very good. The arugula gave an extra dimension, and the pickles provided nice acidity to balance the richness of the other ingredients.
I didn’t have any views of Valencia on this flight when landing, because I was pre-assigned exit row aisle when I checked into my United flight, and there were no window seats available by the time I got to Frankfurt.
After landing in Valencia, for the very first time, there was a sign saying that passengers originating from outside of the EU needed to pick up luggage from the other side of the baggage claim area. I had never seen such a sign before, so I stayed put. After all, how would the baggage handlers know which bags originally came from inside of the EU, and which connected from flights outside of the EU?
But after waiting and waiting and the baggage belt stopped because there were no more bags, ground staff did usher us over to the other side, where the baggage belt started plopping out our bags. This was something new!
I like the old-school United logo used here!
