Airplane Reviews

When booking travel for work, we go through an agency. It's become fairly routine, so I probably don't pay as much attention to reviewing the details of the arrangements as I should. I will now.

For someone who travels as much as I do, one would think I'd know better, but until I printed out my boarding pass at the airport yesterday afternoon, I had no idea that the agent had booked my ticket as a return flight back to Vienna rather than with Budapest as the final destination as I wanted. Jenn and her parents had left that morning for Budapest and the plan was for me to meet them. I evaluated all options, but it seemed the best choice was to get to Vienna and figure it out then.

During my layover in London, I was sitting in the American Airlines lounge and purchased a bus ticket online to bring me from the Vienna airport to Budapest, so I will end up making it there tonight at 10pm, only four hours later than intended. I now sit in the British Airways lounge because the American lounge was too noisy. I was sitting in the area clearly marked with signage as the "quiet area", yet one family apparently thought no one would notice or care if they sat there with their screaming baby. I'm all for kids and babies, but not in the damn quiet area.

On the flight, I had the vegetable lasagna for lunch. It wasn't too bad actually, though there didn't seem to be any vegetables in it. In the DFW airport, I bought this Planters trail mix to have as a snack. I finished that off by the end of the flight, but was disturbed to find out that the bag represented 6 servings at 150 calories each. Oops.

I slept a little (not much), caught up on my Sports Illustrateds, and read some of Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Tom Friedman. I only watched one movie, Cedar Rapids starring Ed Helms as a small town insurance salesman who leaves the city for the first time to attend a regional conference. It wasn't terrible. There were a few things I thought were entertaining. I wouldn't recommend it, but if there is nothing else on TV and you happen to see it on while flipping channels, it's watchable.

To summarize the lessons learned from this blog entry for you to take with you, check your flight reservations, watch your portions when eating Planters trail mix, Cedar Rapids isn't a terrible movie, and keep your kids out of the quiet area.