En route

Work was not exactly a walk in the park last week, which made me even more excited to get away. Life was made a bit more stressful by what I would call the "Passport Fiasco of 2009," but so as not to embarrass anyone, I will not go into more details. The important thing is, both Chris and I have current passports (not sure if the Fiasco of 2002 was worse or better than this one... but I am pretty sure I'd like to be done with them altogether).

My eight and a half month pregnant sister was kind enough to drive us to the airport (was it in bad form to ask Marush to drive us? It isn't like I asked her to pick us up at the airport - we arrive home the day after her due date!) I realized on the way that I was not so comfortable with the whole situation, and I would prefer if Marush stays off the freeways until the baby is born! She is a wonderful driver, but there are a lot of crazy ones out there, and I was channeling my mom by grabbing onto the passenger side door handle every time brake lights came on ahead of us.

The plane flight was uneventful, which is good. Chris and I were supposed to both have aisle seats, but instead I got a middle seat. Actually, I think my seat assignment was the aisle but I gave it to him. I am so kind. I watched three movies on the plane, and during two of which I was crying pretty profusely - some silly kid fare - "Hotel for Dogs" and another dog movie, "Marley and Me." I always wonder what it must look/sound to someone else on the plane when there is a crier like me there. I have never noticed anyone else on planes who gets quite so emotional. I am sure it happens, but I just wonder what the reaction is from others. I should just not be allowed to watch movies.

We had a pretty good tail wind in addition to going with the jet stream, so the flight only took a little over nine hours instead of 10+. We had to circle around London for a bit though, so we ended up landing not too much ahead of what our landing time was supposed to be. I think that if a plane is going to be early, the pilot shouldn't tell the passengers. I was all excited that we were going to land an hour early and was then disappointed when we got there on time. If my expectation of landing early had not been set, I'd probably have been pleased that we were on time. You never know what is going to happen, so unless you are going to be late, why not just tell everyone the plane is scheduled to land on time? Or just tell everyone you are going to be an hour late and then close to landing say you made up for the delay with your wonderful piloting and are therefore now on time. That is what I would do if I was a pilot.