Scandinavia Trip: The flight east

[cjsmith]

*** Fri Sept 20:

Got home from work around ten, and dithered ineffectively for an hour. I did manage to get myself unsubscribed from most of my e-mail lists. That should help with the congestion when I get back. Rob and I both took melatonin and went to sleep at eleven. Rob set his alarm for 4AM, in an attempt to give ourselves jet lag in advance.


*** Sat Sept 21:

We were incredibly groggy when the alarm went off. It was probably quarter to five before we actually turned any lights on. We packed quickly. I nearly forgot half my C3B cards; that's how fried I was. We watched the dawn from the hot tub, showered, and waited around for Kim to come by at eleven. Chris arrived briefly and gave me some birthday cards. My birthday will be in Stockholm.

Rob has a heckuva lot of luggage. I don't know what he put in that large blue bag, rocks? We actually rented a pushcart to use in San Francisco airport. That's the first time I've used one of those since I was a little girl and my family went to Cairo.

The checkin line was mercifully short. We wound up with several hours to kill in the airport. I bought several books. I finished the first one (A Child Called It) before boarding, and left it in the terminal for somebody else to read. I also bought a quick-reference passenger jet identification chart, and had fun with that while waiting.

The first leg of the flight, on Northwest = KLM, was ten hours from San Francisco to Amsterdam. All announcements were in Dutch, then English. Each seat had a pillow and blanket already in place when we arrived. Clearly we were supposed to sleep during the flight. We had two of the center four seats of a two-four-two configuration MD-11. Not long after takeoff, Rob took his drugs (melatonin, Sominex, and some herbs from Kim) and prepared for sleep. He was seated next to a big, very fidgety black guy who was fascinated by Rob's elaborate preparations. (Well, Rob did have an inflatable neck pillow, earplugs, the airline-supplied pillow and blanket, plus the drugs.) I drugged myself up a little later; I waited to eat dinner first.