Day 1: Flying to Europe and Getting Corkscrewed

What did we get ourselves into?

If traveling without a baby isn't hassle enough, try bringing a corkscrew through London Heathrow's airport. That's a hassle.

Traveling together with DJ through the first leg of the journey went fine, with the notable exception that I had forgot my fleece at home and had my mom return again to the airport with it. But that was not DJ's fault, and technically we hadn't left yet. As for the flight, we had a lot of room in our bulkhead seats and DJ loved playing with the window shades and air vents. 

Finally. He is asleep.

By the end of the first flight, DJ was tired and we hoped he would fall asleep by takeoff at 645 for London. He was asleep right after takeoff...however the plane didn't leave until after 8pm! And the man in front of us was not looking forward to the next eight hours on the plane with pre-takeoff DJ screaming and fighting off sleep. And his constant muttering and hair pulling made it evident! We offered him earplugs and he immediately transformed into a friendly dutch gentleman.

Because our flight was delayed, we landed late in London and had little time to get from one end of the airport to the other, which was bad because we only had about an hour to start with. And, to add to our time crunch, they waited to give us our stroller (in the UK, our "buggy") until all, let me repeat that, ALL, of the passengers from our transatlantic mega-plane flight had gotten off the plane. But that is not all...

We got stopped in the carry-on/passenger security check and held for extra searching. (Who knew that London Heathrow makes its transferring passengers go through security again?!!!?) Long story short, I had brought a corkscrew with me (which is TSA approved if it is bladeless) but it looked like an unapproved one (one with a blade). It looked like that because it formerly was an unapproved corkscrew, and I had removed the blade before the flight and duct-taped the handle together. 

America had no problem it. But we were not in America, we were in London, where people drive on the left side of road, where they spell authorized with an "s", and where they dare to call you "Love" when they are single-handedly causing you to almost miss a flight over a corkscrew that you really don't care that much about! They let me keep it in the end, which was little consolation if we missed this flight.

Fortunately we made it to the next flight on time (somehow it also got delayed - a miracle!). Our flight to Vienna had many empty seats and it looked like Sirena, DJ, and I would have all three seats to ourselves, which was a welcome relief after the headache we just went through. That is, until Gerta Von Shpoiler told us that she had booked the seat between us. 

Now, Gerta was an older lady who was very prim and proper, quietly did crosswords and spoke little English. She was also pretty set on sitting in her assigned seat between Sirena and me. After a few broken attempts to have her change seats, she finally agreed to switch to the window seat so that Sirena, DJ and I could at least sit together.

About ten minutes into the flight, a kind attendant told Sirena that she could move across the aisle into one of the two empty seats next to us. This gave us some space and allowed Sirena to learn a very interesting piece of information. In the same row as us, across the aisle sat a young man, alone (purposefully redundant for emphasis), with all three seats to himself. When Sirena moved over and explained the situation to him, he was glad to share a seat... and to mention that Gerta was his mom. 

He was old lady Von Shpoiler's son, whom she was knowingly traveling together with. And yet...for some odd reason, she felt compelled to make the family with a baby sit three across when she could have just sat next to her son. Crazy!!!

To be fair, Gerta somewhat redeemed herself when, at the end of the flight, she, a stranger, offered us candy, and we willingly accepted it. So concluded our journey from Columbus to Charlotte to London to Vienna. DJ promptly pooped as soon as we boarded each flight, he screamed some, he laughed a lot, we slept some, not a lot, we sat next to some very understanding individuals, and finally made it to our destination. 

Now, we just needed to figure out how to get from the airport to our hotel. This is where having a Sergio helps a lot..

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Meet Sergio Jiandani