Tuesday, February 22, 2011

America - Here we come!

Traversing the globe isn’t as glamorous as I once dreamed, especially when you’re schlepping a duffel bag and carry on sized roller bag containing camera equipment, a lap top computer and a DVD player, a three year old, a back pack full of toys and winter coats for you and the three year old.


Finally getting out of Russia, took some of the bite out of the 2:30 AM departure for the airport, but starting my day at that time of the day is never painless. The trip to the Domodedovo Airport from our hotel should take an hour - - unless you get stuck behind a fleet of VERY slow moving snow plows that adds 40 minutes to the trip. Would you like to guess how I know this?

With a bit of good luck, we cranked through all the security, immigrations and general airlines and airport hoopla arriving at the gate with 15 minutes to spare before boarding a British Airlines flight to London. Shortly after boarding, I realized that my previous disappointing experience with British Airlines was the standard not an exception. I was gutted to learn that BA doesn’t offer alcohol on morning flights - even in business class. I was banking on that little glass of Champagne as a reward for getting up at such an ungodly hour.

Sadly enough, this beverage dilemma was not even close to the low point of the flight. Dennis had slept all the way to the airport and he was working on coming to terms with the fact that he was traveling without his Papa. He was struggling to get situated on the plane. He had rejected each and every toy, book and game in his back pack; he buckled and unbuckled his seat belt a dozen times, perused the BA magazine, the duty free shopping catalog and the safety instruction card all in less than 30 minutes. At his request I handed him an air sick bag to explore and had closed my eyes to think about the next 20 hours of travel, the lack of alcohol on the first of 3 flights and the promise I made to Dave to not take sleeping pill while flying with our newly acquired son. While searching for my virtual happy place, I realized that the whining coming from the seat next to me had subsided. After a few glorious minutes, it occurred to me that I should open my eyes and see WHY he was suddenly so quiet.

At first, I noticed that he had shredded the air sick bag and though “Oh Well”, then I noticed that Dennis was chomping away on a piece of gum. For a millisecond, I thought “Oh, he has gum”, before my brain thought to ask “Where did he get gum?” A brief investigation, confirmed my worst fear. The gum in question was second hand and had been harvested from the air sick bag I’d given him. The little guy was quite proud of his find and was deeply incensed by the suggestion of spitting it out. It was painfully clear that he wasn’t going to give up the gum voluntarily. Given that he’s already had it in his mouth for over 5 minutes and any cooties had already been transferred, I decided “Oh, what the hell, at least he’s quiet and maybe his ears will pop more easily”.

I always believe that it’s best to get the worst bits over early so things can only go up from there! That adage certainly proved right on this trip.

Stay tuned for the highlights of leg 2 of the trip, London to Dallas.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Okay, so Dennis was IN the carry on sized roller bag...Just kidding. Glad you are finally on the move...sort of. Do you have plans for touring the USA or is it business only while you are in the States??? Hope the traveling continues to go well.
Koreen