Europe trip Saturday May 12 2012
We spent Saturday morning finishing packing and getting wine ready to send off to a couple off competitions with deadlines while we are gone. During preparations, both printers at the house ran out of ink, so running to Staples for ink cartridges became one of the errands of the morning. Another errand was to run by the eye doctor for contact lenses because I hadn’t realized I was using my last pair. We were able to get everything completed and ready for mailing on Monday and out the door just a few minutes behind schedule. We read that we should be at the airport 150 minutes ahead of time for international travel, so with a 2:00 pm flight we aimed to arrive at 11:30am. While dropping off our bags at the desk, we saw a sign that said they accept luggage up to one hour before take- off.
The security line at the international terminal at SFO was one of the longest lines I have been in lately, so I was glad we had the extra time. Once we got through security, we stopped and had lunch at one of the venues at the airport. I also stopped at a newsstand and got some life savers for the ride. The lines were long everywhere at the airport, at one point a woman plowed ahead of me at the restaurant, and I said, “excuse me ma’am, but I was ahead of you in line”, she said “I am only buying water” which, of course, is exactly what I was doing. She was apologetic, and I felt bad for being annoyed. Later, while waiting for our flight at the gate, the same woman was waiting in the crowd. It isn’t like me to ‘call someone out’, and it made me feel embarrassed.
Once on the plane, we took our seats- I had checked our seats the day before and we had an aisle and a window seat with an empty seat between us, but at the last minute, we had someone come to sit in the middle seat. Since I am happy with a window, and Sheldon is happy with an aisle, we just settled in for the 9 hour flight. I looked out the window for the first few hours of the flight. I had a spectacular view of Lake Tahoe with snow capped mountains all around it, and then we headed north to some really beautiful countryside. Snacks and hot towels were passed around by the attendants. The vegetarian meal was pretty good- steamed vegetables, a decent roll, and salad. Somehow, I had ordered ‘strict vegetarian’ meals for both Sheldon and myself, but he was good natured about it. Later he said the food was good but not filling enough. As we got towards the east coast, the flight attendants requested that we close the shades- they dimmed the lights so that we could have the experience of ‘night’ for a few hours before landing in Amsterdam. I reluctantly closed my window shade as we were flying over what I think was Hudson Bay. I was able to doze off for a short while.