Getting to Paris

The adventure started Saturday. I woke up early, with the excitement everyone gets when they are eager to get something, or start something new. I couldn't get back to sleep , even though I knew that sleeping in would be a good idea. Even though I had to work until Friday, I only had a few more things to add to my packing. SK, on the other hand, took all the way to 1030 to finish, even though he had had the last two days off. We left early, with the idea of getting an early lunch before going to AM's house to park the car and get the ride to SeaTac. Stopped for lunch and arrived just in time. I parked up top to unload, and regretted it immediately. My car is very hard to see out of when backing up, especially when you are trying to do so going down a hill. I backed up the 50 feet, hoping the whole time I wasn't going to damage someones car, fence or other valuable near the drive. Parked the car down below and removed all the important papers, leaving them inside AM's house. Got to the airport plenty early, checked in, and breezed through security. Woohoo. I'm going to Paris! Changed some money into Euros, rate is about 69 right now and searched for a bathroom so I could put on the underwire bra I chose to put in my carryon to avoid that awkward necessity of having a complete stranger grope me under my breasts. We got water for the flight, staying well-hydrated is supposed to help lessen jet lag and watched the runway as planes left Seattle. About an hour before boarding we got a light dinner at one of the restaurants. We didn't know if food would be available or not. We also made sure we had snacks for the flight.

 
Boarding call was chaotic, as usual, but we made it aboard and walked almost all the way to the back of the plane. Behind us were 8 young children and their parents. Does this flight seem to have a lot of kids? There were more scattered throughout the plane. I could tell when the kids had reached their limit of no play, constant noise and lack of sleep. It was especially a bad time for one parent whose child may have had a bit of congestion and the descent seemed to be painful to those of us with hearing. One other feature of this flight was a terribly uncomfortable seat which caused my tailbone to remind me that it was not happy sitting so long. And finally, it was HOT. The air in the cabin was too warm, the air vent could barely be felt. The sun was very bright on my side of the plane contributing to the heat. So I was too hot, on top of not being able to sit back in the seat for more than a few minutes because of the tailbone. I thought the food was tasty, though quite expensive. I stuck with water to drink and ice to try to cool down. The free inflight movies were nice - watched Sherlock Holmes again, a cute animated show about teen Thor, a documentary on Iceland and bits of over things. I tried sleeping, but the heat ad inability to sit up hindered my attempts. Leaning forward and supporting my head on the tray with blankets and a pillow was about as comfortable as I could get, but I couldn't breathe well. Iceland, at least in the area of the Keflavik airport, Reykjavik, is very flat, and a bit desolate brown. There were many beautiful lupines all over the taxi- and run-way borders. The people of Iceland seem to be very friendly. We breezed through customs, they checked my boarding pass, the passport picture against the real face and I am now allowed to travel to any European destination without going through customs again. We actually didn't put that together 'til later. We were supposed to have almost an hour between landing and the next flight, but our plane must of had a bit of a head wind and we had just enough time to relieve our bladders and go to the next gate for boarding. Boarding was handled differently than I have experienced before. They opened the doors and everyone started going through. They checked our boarding pass and passport for the custom's stamp and identity, but they didn't call for parents with children or those needing assistance first. It was first come, first gets on the plane. We were just about at the very back again, in fact same seats, different plane. This time, however, we did not have 8 children behind us. There were still children aboard, but not as many as from Seattle. I again got to experience the rush of takeoff. By this time it was about 2 am by our body clocks, though it was brightly lit and about 8 am. I was really tired. For the shorter flight I tried sleeping. The seat was better, but without additional pillows and blankets it was difficult to prop myself up. I also kept peeking out the window: I saw the Isle of Skye, south Britain - Brighton and the country of France. I was unable to see the cliffs of Dover - it's amazing how the clouds follow the coastlines of land masses. From the air, France is very green. The fields are well defined. The forests are tiny. From the air Kirkland still looks like a forest in my neighborhood. There are enough trees in France to make a neighborhood look like a forest. The forests are bounded by fields and roads. As we got close to Paris, I kept looking out the window to see if I could catch a glimpse of the city from the air. On final approach I did finally see the Eiffel tower, barely. We made a definite landing and all weariness went away. We claimed our baggage, after a delay, but faster than I had expected since we had checked in early and transferred flights in Keflavik.

I experienced a sense of deja vue when we started from the plane toward baggage claim when I realized that the people movers were the same we see in one of my favorite movies, French Kiss. They move fast and I was almost literally swept off my feet. After the first people mover we went up some escalators, then to more people moves through tubes. After getting our baggage we looked for customs, only to discover that going through Iceland is good enough for the entire European Union. No stamp of Paris in my passport?