We took off from Kalamazoo on the evening of May 24... quick flight over to Detroit, and then on to Paris. I'd just like to thank the fine folks at Northwest Airlines for a great trip to Detroit. Now that I've done that, I'd like to curse them for a miserable experience from there on... They began boarding the plane about an hour or so before the flight was due to take off. It was fully booked, and there was quite a bit of stuffing and cramming of luggage... and then we sat... and waited to take off...

While we were waiting there in the plane, there was a lady sitting next to Penny and me who had been separated from her boyfriend, and she was not looking forward to a long flight without him... so she started trying to get some people to move around so that they could sit together. The airline attendant had offered a bottle of wine to a lady sitting behind us, were she to move, but she wanted her aisle seat. Penny had an aisle seat, and I offered that we could move over a seat, give Penny's aisle seat to the lady that wouldn't budge, letting the couple sit together... if we got the wine. The offer was accepted, and we scored a bottle of wine...

All the while we waited...

...then we were told that there was a minor problem having to do with an antenna on the top of the plane... and they were calling Pep Boys to see if they had the part in stock... and Pep Boys had it, and then the fine kids at NWA started trying to put the antenna on the top of the airplane... but they were having a tough time of it... so then the nice airplane people told us that perhaps it would just be easier if we all got onto a nice new airplane... so they ordered one from Boeing, and we all went to the bar to wait until it was delivered, where the people we helped to get seats next to each other bought us a beer, and we talked a bit to them about our plans and their plans and Paris and all that stuff... and then we got on the plane and enjoyed a dreadfully long flight to Paris.

I've never really gotten motion sickness before, but I really have a feeling that if we had run into turbulence, I would have needed that little bag located in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me... but we landed safely, and our Parisian adventure could begin...