Air, Landier, and Sea

And we’re off! We headed out for Rome, our first stop on our world tour today!

We decided that while I will write most of the articles, Bryce will be doing a “coffees of the world” post, where he will describe and rank his favorite brews at each destination.

We came up with this idea after realizing that despite my nearly 20-years of experience drinking coffee, Bryce’s opinion of coffee, now that he’s been drinking it for a whole 8 months, truly interests people more. So there’s something to look forward to.

As for our first flight- it went really smooth after they announced that we may have to switch planes because the flight wasn’t full enough and the cargo doors wouldn’t shut so we sat on the tarmac for an hour.

While it does sound like Iim complaining I’m truly not. There’s nothing I appreciate more than the cargo doors not opening in the middle of my flight.

If you’ve ever flown with me it will be no surprise to you that I calmly tapped Bryce on the shoulder and told him not to get too comfortable since we’re moving planes, to which he replied (Bose headphones on already watching a show) “Oh, did they make an announcement?”

To which I wondered, How has he ever successfully flown on plane without me? As I was gathering my belongings and confusedly watching as everyone else (including Bryce) didn’t make a move.

Apparently on airplanes, majority rules so we didn’t change planes. And eventually they did close the cargo doors.

Once again, no complaints, here, all my love to the Edelweiss ground crew.

Plus, the hour wait went quite quickly for me since I “hired” myself as the Landier flight attendant and very thoughtfully left one Bose head phone off, so I could hear every announcement- in Dutch and English- and then re-announce them to Bryce (in English only).

A smooth 11 hour flight later we landed in Zurich for a short layover before heading out to Rome.

Many of you will be sad to know that despite our strategic packing, we were forced to check our bags from Zurich to Rome.

How could this possibly be? Here’s how it happened:

When Bryce got to the front of the boarding line the woman lifted his carryon and said it’s too heavy. (Since we were business class, she gave us special tags, which basically provided us false hope that we could carry on, which was dashed as soon as we got to the jetway and they checked the bags anyway.)

Now, do I believe this woman can actually detect the weight just by lifting it with an outstretched arm? Yes I do. If anyone could, she could- she does it every day.

Also, I’m horrible at guessing distances, weights, or any type of measurement and I know that about myself so I have no room to argue.

In fact, I refuse to play the game Wits and Wagers with my family because it requires each player writing down a guess to obscure things like “the height of the world’s tallest giraffes neck” which I answered “30 feet” and my dad replied “you honestly think this giraffe’s neck was 3 stories tall?”

All this to say, this isn’t my gift. And when it is your gift, I believe you know it.

Speaking of gifts, something you should know about me if you don’t already is I have a deep love (some may even call it a passion) for eavesdropping.

In fact, it’s something I believe has been passed down to me from generations before. Not generations of good listeners, because a good listener would know what the person sitting in front of them at dinner was talking about. No,my skill is I’m a good hearer.

These hearing skills led to a secret of the airline world revealed!

After we got our special bag tags the woman with the scale arms lifted up the bag of the man behind us.

She said, with authority, “18 kilograms, too big”
The man asked “How many can I have in economy?”

Woman: 15 kilograms
Man: “What about in business class?”
Woman: “20”
Man: “So I can’t have just three more in economy?” (Granted, this is a silly question and a silly question deserves a silly answer, so keep reading)
Woman:”No, because if this bag falls on your head it will kill you.”

Ahh, now I understand. It’s not just the extra fee that allows business class’ carry-ons to be heavier, it’s a safety issue.

An 18kg bag to the head in business class is truly small potatoes.

But that same bag to the head in economy? Deadly.

The more you know.

Our trip is already off to the best, fun and education-filled start!

All our love,

Mr. and Mrs. Landier