Departure Day

11 November 2007- Sunday
Veteran's Day

Up early for last minute housekeeping and am ready to leave as Tom shows up on time at 10 am for my ride to Cincinnati Airport. It's raining, the lawn is almost obliterated with leaves- but it's Sunday so there should be minimal traffic on I-75. Weather clears up on the way south- good omen. Actually made it in about 1 hour. Delta area about empty and my silver medallion status saves me 50 bucks, because I'm 5 pounds over 50 pound limit. Check bag all the way through to Barcelona, grab a quarter pounder artificial hamburger and make it to the gate near boarding time. Flight loads uneventfully and by now the bad weather has caught up with me. Cincy to Chicago flight uneventful. Cheese and crackers and a small bottle of water for snacks. Long walk to Iberia (shares gates with American Airlines so I have my AA card ready when I pick up my boarding card for an aisle seat. Two hours to wait as I see Iberia taxi inter international building area. Sit next to large gentleman with baseball cap, dark glasses and a cane. It didn't have a red tip, so I guess he wasn't blind. Proved it when he says " I see by your baggage tag you're going on the Marco Polo." Turns out he has been cruising since 1990. Owns a home in Phoenix and his daughter is his next door neighbor- "but they have their own friends and don't visit much- at least I have someone to talk to on the cruises!" he said he does 6-7 cruises a year- some back to back and one year he did 13 cruises in 12 months. His wheel chair and attendant roll up and when he stands he really is a big guy. Told me he's a diabetic and is always either hypo or hyperglycemic- smelled a little ketotic to me.
Iberia is flying an Airbus 380-carries 300 passengers and has 4 engines- a real widebody. I get to board in first batch because row 33 is pretty far back- only 4 rows behind me. In fact it is so far back that the center row in front of me has 4 seats, but mine only has 3. Sitting (read crammed into) in the opposite end on this center row, one seat between us is a very large woman who looks really miserable. After the doors are closed, the stewardess says it is ok for her to move into the back row- since there are a few empty seats- as she gets up she says "this is nothing personal, but if I stayed in that seat an hour, I wouldn't be able to walk". I later saw her sleeping peacefully (Pickwickian). Take-off on time, dinner ok- chicken pieces I could not identify anatomically. Couple across the isle from me from southern CA and he wears a basque type beret and an ascot. Bragged that his beat up beret 40 years old. the Basque in the seat behing him pulls out his inherited beret 60 years old and the match ended there. Of course, I popped an Ambiem before the meal as the movies were really bad and I'd had a long day.

Afterthought: Veterans day used to be Armistice Day. The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 and armistice was signed between the Great Powers (The Germans, the AustroHungarian empire and the Ottoman empire) and the Allies- Britain, France and (since 1917) the USA -in a railway car at Compiegne. It was the war to end all wars, but in Paris in 1919 things went awry and many of the problems we have today date back to that era. In the mean time, the US has been involved in 5 wars not counting the invasion of Grenada and Panama.