A Glamorous Way to Fly - Viva Europa Journal

Monday, August 8, 2011

We got to the airport early but not too early. The lines were long but not too long. My ticket got bumped up to First-Class for the first leg of the trip. All I can say is WOW! First-Class is exactly that. It was like flying from the comfort of your favorite recliner... but better. You get waited on hand and foot. "Would you like more wine?" "The chicken salad or turkey club?" "Warm towel?" Flying that way can be very addicting! Personal TV with tons of movies, automated chair with foot rest and lumbar support. When Nathan showed me the lumbar support button, my exact words were, "Oh, I'm in love."

Sadly leg 2 was in economy. And worse... alone. Nathan was in a "Sleeping Pod" which probably blows First-Class out of the water. Battleship sunk.

Newark > A bit longer than expected
After circling Newark for 30 minutes (so I was told because I fell asleep), we headed to the gate board. Flight departure delayed 2 hours and a gate change. So we strolled around and headed to the President's Club which was another first for me. On that note... side detour to the '2011 Firsts for Krista':

1. No employer
2. Wedding invitation design
3. Travel with 2 kids out of the state
4. PRK eye surgery
5. 99.9% chance of moving to Angola (This is another adventure that deserves detailed journaling!)
6. Vacation to Europe with my honey!

Needless to say it's been a big year. Back to the story... President's Club - much calmer and quieter setting to pass our flight delay time. And the chairs are so much better that the terrible gate chairs. Oh and free snacks and drinks.

Nathan and I found a good spot and decided to check our flight status again. Delayed again another 2 hours! Ugh! Our 2 hour layover turned into a 6 hour layover. Hence the abundant amount of time to journal about our trip thus far. We filled the time with a few activities. A game of iPad Monopoly. Damn the Baseball Glove! He wiped Nathan and me out! Next we hit the book store. Pretty quick trip with a purchase of some magazines. I perused the kids section. barely 24 hours away from my babies and I miss them terribly.

Next we went on the hunt for food. while airports have an abundance of options, it still seems hard to decide where to eat. The fast food joints were automatically knocked off the list. I can slip off the healthy train and indulge in some greasy fries and burger. But Nathan stays on track. I think we walked through the entire airport and road every moving walkway before we ended up at the 1st place we checked out. We still had a long flight delay so why not sit down to a good meal. What we didn't know was that it would take 20 minutes to get our drinks and aver an hour for our food. Piping hot plates with dry, mediocre steaks. The sustenance filled our bellies but it was way over-priced. The worst part was our waitress hardly helped us. The water guy ended up serving us 90% of everything. Nathan was pretty unhappy with the service.

So what do you do? Head to Starbucks and get him a coffee. That automatically sends him to his happy place. Back to the President's Club to wait and write.