February 26, 2012

• The Travels Begin

  Hello, there. It’s time to dust off the Xanga blog for another round of international travels with the Sellers! (feel free to insert “squee” sounds here).

  I write this from our hotel room in Vienna. I have to remind myself that it really is only 4:00 in the afternoon on Sunday in PA. My body doesn’t know which was is dawn!  So, what are the best bits so far… hmmm.

  We left Saturday at 1:45 for Dulles airport near Washington, DC. We could have flown out of State College for not much more, but we wanted to fly British Air, and we did not want to have to plane hop too much.  Peep and Poppy went with us.

  

   

  After stuffing ourselves at Bob Evans (chicken and noodles and mashed potatoes and biscuits), we got to the airport in plenty of time for our 10:30 pm flight. This time, we only had six large suitcases, five smaller suitcase carry-ons, and five backpacks/laptop bags. I still felt like a conspicuous American, which was still okay since I was in America at the time. I felt compelled to tell the British Air people that we were going for over two months. As if they cared why we had so much luggage!

   

  

   

  We settled in on the airplane and fooled around with the camera.

      

  I got queasy after takeoff. I am such a bad flyer.  But, they fed us a delicious lasagna dinner at 11:30 pm, and I felt so good after eating that I watched One Day, which I’d been wanting to see ever since I read the book.  Dozed a bit after that, but not for long as they served muffins and tea at 4:00. (Did not eat that. Blah.)

  Got off at Heathrow (London) and just smiled and smiled. I was back in England! Even if it was diesel-scented, from-a-transport bus, high-price airport, I was back in England!  We were there about four hours and got on our next flight which was to Vienna. I slept the fitful sleep of someone on an airplane. Gee, so far this is a dull story for traveling internationally.

  Oh! I forgot! I had to get patted down at Heathrow because I set off the metal detectors. The only reason I can think of is it was my braces. Har! It was not too creepy as it was a woman who did the patting down. After all my travels, it sort of felt like a mini-massage. And I made James’ suitcase get flagged and pulled there because I put in my eyeglasses screwdrivers. The guy who found it rolled his eyes and said, “I would not have flagged you for this!” 

  We got to our hotel (pictures later) and went to a pizza place where Rachel had spaghetti, James and Michael and Libby all had plain pizza, and I had one with ham, mushrooms, artichoke, and black olives. It was odd because the ham was on a fourth, the mushrooms on a fourth, and so on. And the olives still had their pits in them. But WOW was it good! I ate a pizza as big as a regular dinner plate. And here, it is not Diet Coke. It’s Coca-Cola Light.

  Now we are back in our hotel rooms showered and in pajamas and very, very sleepy. More later!

  • 4:32 pm
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