FAKE NEWS!!! EXTRA TOE TERRITORY

Ray and I and Linda are finally on our trip to Sweden by way of a cruise from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg.  After our cruise we will travel to Sweden for a few days to hopefully, find more information about our ancestors.

I will start with our flight to Copenhagen.  Every trip has a few surprises and ours began with one.  We flew Icelandair to Copenhagen from O'Hare, Chicago.  We were so  lucky to have Becky drive us there so that we did not have to take the shuttle.  Feeling quite smug about the ease of being let off at the correct door and getting our boarding passes, we leisurely walked to our gate.  We had enough time to have dinner and looked forward to napping on the plane since it was going to be a long over night flight; six hours to Reykjavik, Iceland and then a couple more hours to Copenhagen.

We boarded the plane. It was small, three seats on each side of one aisle. They gave us a bottle of water. We found our seats (all three together), each with a blanket and piece of foam with a flimsy, gauze-like pillow case. We had one carry on that Ray put above and then he slipped into the window seat.  I was next, picking up the blanket and pillow, and then Linda sat in the aisle seat.  I had made sure to get us seats with extra leg room because Linda has inherited the Haworth hip and leg ailment and needs to stand up and walk more than I.

I first realized that there might be a problem when my back pack would not fit under the seat in front of me.  Hmmmmm.... I have never had this problem on other flights I have taken, even when there are only two seats on one side that have a smaller space.  I realized that there was some sort of bar hanging down which blocked my back pack.  Ray and Linda had space under their seats.  I managed to turn it sideways and squash it in so that half of it was under the seat, and yet, half was sticking out.  I was waiting for the flight attendant to tell me that it could not be sticking out, but no one seemed to care.

Next, what do we do with the blanket and pillow?  It was warm in the cabin and there was no need for a blanket. It was about then, that I realized that there was no space to put them.  Poor Ray ended up using my pillow as part of an arm rest, and we each just held the blankets.  I began feeling guilty as I was the one who got the plane tickets and assured Linda and Ray that I had only heard good things about Icelandair and that it was the shortest flight with a short lay over.  I had assumed that there would be more room since it was an international flight, and since we got seats that had extra legroom.  As you can see from the picture, there was not much legroom, but the sign behind my head assured me that there was.

This was the legroom for Ray on our flight from Reykjavik.  His pack would not go under the seat,

This was my legroom the whole two flights.

This was our seat, and my toes did not feel like they had extra territory.

I have been on many international flights and this was the worst one I have ever flown.  (That counts the time we flew to Paris and the air conditioning broke and I had sweat dripping down my back.)  We saw the flight attendant only a few times, once to check our seat belts, another to offer us a drink (but having a full bottle of water, with no place to store it, we decided it best to not get another drink), and then the last time we saw a flight attendant was at the end of the flight when we were offered a half a glass of orange juice.  I know we could have called an attendant, but usually during a flight we see them walking the aisle checking on people.  It was like they disappeared until the flight was almost to Reykjavik.

Linda and I pried ourselves out of our seats a few times to walk, but it took so much effort to move all of our stuff. Poor Ray was the receiver of the blankets and jackets.  We could barely see his head peaking over the top of our stuff.

When we landed in Reykjavik we went through customs with little problem.  We just needed to orient ourselves and follow the signs.  We then went to our next gate and waited a short time to board the next flight which would only be a little over two hours long.  We boarded a shuttle and boarded the plane in the pouring rain.  We were almost the last to board because there had been no announcement in the airport telling us that the plane was boarding.  There was no system, like having certain rows load first.  Everyone just became part of a long line that snaked at least 40 yards (I was going to say three football fields, but Ray said that was too much of an exaggeration). We finally crammed ourselves into our seats and were ready to get to Copenhagen.

Of course, we were hungry, too.  There had been no time to catch a snack at the Reykjavik airport, and there had been no snacks (not even pretzels) on the long overseas flight.  We decided to buy a snack.  Linda and I got Pringles and each a different kind of candy bar.  Ray got hummus and crackers.  We had wanted to go for something healthier like Ray, but we had already seen someone's hummus and it did not look good.  You be the judge. ( Oh how I was missing Sidon's Hummus and Pita.)

The hummus had no flavor and was dry, but Ray ate it anyway.  The amount of hummus would fill about half a shot glass.

Here is my candy bar.  In the picture it looked like it was dark chocolate surrounded by milk chocolate.  When I opened it, I realized that I should have remembered that one of  Iceland's treats is chocolate covered black licorice.  You can see from the picture that I did nibble the licorice.  I really tried to be open minded about it, especially since I was really hungry.  But I just couldn't eat it.  Ray usually eats what I don't like, but this time he passed.

I will stop here, because this is getting long.  Please, know that the rest of our trip has not been a disaster, but the first day, on Icelandair, we were hoping it was not a sign of things to come.

Copenhagen:  Our first stop will be next.