Day 1 - proper post

Above: amazing action at Keflavik airport.

Our flight from Stockholm to New York was as smooth and uneventful as you might expect from a long trip. That means the planes didn't crash, the luggage arrived in one piece despite a stopover and noone is (yet) suffering from food poisoning. But you know how it is - always a few bumps along the way. We had the pleasure of flying business class. On Icelandair this is called "economy comfort". The difference between economy comfort and first class (called Saga class!) was a small sign on one of the seat rows saying "Saga class from this row forward" and what appeared to be an insane amount of free alcohol. Anyway, our comfort was top class.

As we were taking our seats, we noticed with great alarm that a mother with a 3 month year old baby was sitting right across the aisle from us. However, our alarm was nothing compared to that of the unfortunate young man sitting next to her. We could hear her explaning that her husband had not reserved a ticket and was sitting further back in the plane. As their conversation went on, it was more than obvious she was just waiting for him to offer to swap his seat with the husband. Things along the lines of "will it be OK if I push past you every so often to get out to go see my husband?" and "yes, he's only three months old and this is his first flight... I have no idea how he will react" could be heard. Finally, when only met with sighs and nods from the young man, she downright asked him to swap, with the final punchline "well it's up to you if you want to sit next to a screaming baby".

In the end, the young man was moved forward to another free seat in economy comfort. The mother, however, stayed alone with the seat next to her free. I suppose the husband didn't want to pay for the upgrade ;) I'm actually not sure how well the unfortunate young man fared in the end, because he was put next to some minor Swedish celebrity who talked endlessly about his upcoming tour in Canada. As it turned out, the baby was very quiet and we thoroughly enjoyed the flight.

The flight from Keflavik to JFK in New York was pretty much the same. Same plane type, same seats, same kind of mumbling Icelandic pilot. The only difference was that the guy in the seat in front of me had a seat-adjusting obsession of some sort. I had to stop watching the in-flight entertainment because I was getting sea sick from the screen bobbing back and forth.

Even the security check at the airport was smoother than expected. It feels good to know that the CIA or the FBI or whoever have my fingerprints and eye scans if they ever want to get in touch.

Getting to the hotel took about as long as the first lap of the flight did, but at least we had even better entertainment than on the plane with a local guy trying to impress two german hotties with his street smartness. He gave them his number and pleaded them to call him, any time, for any reason. They called him loser as soon as he stepped off - I think that's as close as he got.

Today (July 1) has been absolutely packed with stuff. Pics and reports coming tomorrow.