Thirty hours from door to door. Naturally, it took me a day to get my head on straight so I could write a coherent first blog post.

Before going into details about the “dream-flight,” I want to say something about my blog title. The title “into a north west sky” refers to the last siting of me in the US was flying over the lit-up Seattle streets. The tag-line refers simply to the three-country boarder on which I live; the border of France, Switzerland, and Germany.

Back to my much anticipated return to Europe.

In order to save a bit of money, Anja and I chose to fly direct from Seattle to Frankfurt. It was the right choice. We didn’t fly out until eight at night, thus we didn’t need to get up at unearthly hours and got to have a nice lunch in downtown Seattle with my parents. As to the flight its self, I will sum it up in a few tips I have to other travelers.

1: Don’t travel with three five year-old boys.If the boys aren’t a nuisance, the parents yelling at their every move in order to hinder them annoying others are worse.

2: The best way to sleep is against an up-right armrest. Better yet, sit between an armrest and a window or two armrests. Also, take a travel pillow.

3: IMPORTANT! Always expect the best-worst (or worst-best) outcome. I don’t mean expect that the plane will crash of the shore of Greenland and the passengers are eaten by Orcas and those lucky enough to make it to land become popsicles for Polar bears. But one should expect that their plane is delayed due to too many carry-ons, one is stuck behind a parental time bomb hooked to a three kindergarten fuzes, and one looks greasy and exhausted when stumbling of the train that was delayed and overfilled due to a technical malfunction.

Chuck