First we talked with the people at the checkin desk. They said to speak with the stewardess when we get on the plane. So when we got on the plane and asked her she said:

"No problem. Sit together and the stewardess at the back of the plane will fix it".

We sat down together but when the passengers, who's seats we took, came the stewardess at the back of the plane told us to sit in our assigned seats. With all the passengers streaming in we really didn't have a choice - I think the airline people knew all along this would happen. They didn't try to solve the problem but just pushed us into a corner. Rachel got very upset that she would have to sit by herself for 11 hours. It was only after Tasia and me made a big fuss a kind passenger swapped seats with Tasia. This was not a good start to an 11 hour flight.

Turned out that the situation could have been easily defused had the staff bothered to check - I had an empty seat next to me.

In the end Tasia and Rachel sat together and Michal and me also suffered through this flight together.

Photo: Antoni

Fot. Jacek Babiel / AG 2008-03-16

Following the old Jewish fable about making a bad situation better by introducing a goat into the mix I decided to carry a large, inconvenient object with me as additional carryon. I bought Easter Palms in the morning from a flower stall on Warecka Street. These are not expensive so if things got really bad I could always dump them and feel better.

There are no Palms in Poland. To celebrate Palm Sunday and in keeping with Middle Eastern tradition the faithful resorted to making fanciful representations of palm fronds. They use local materials like straw and dried flowers to create these amazing, intricate and sometimes huge Palmy Wielkanocne. The designs are regionally distinct.

I bought 2 "Palms". The one with a Kujawskie design was about 3 feet long and the second smaller one had a ?owickie motif. They where a good diversion, a sort of lightning rod for stress as in "Oh come on Dad, did you really have to buy these."

The seats on an Airbus A340-300 , especially in the outer rows (A, B and J, K), are excruciatingly tight. Not only width wise (17.3") but also the rows are very close together. No legroom - if I stretched out my legs I would be playing footsie with the passenger in front of me - a surly Slovak. I couldn't even use my iBook because there was not enough room to open it when the seat in front was reclined. The middle rows seem to have a little more space. I watched with envy as people used their laptops.

I must say that they did feed us a lot and the food wasn't too bad. Guess they know eating and drinking, booze was free, helps to pass the time.

I don't like the flight back because the day seems to last for ever. You end up gaining back all the time you lost getting there which makes for something like a 30 hour day. Our bodies and brains have not evolved for this kind of shit.

The plane arrived at LAX on time, customs was a breeze. My Easter Palms were the only things that commandeered any attention and that was quickly resolved when nobody could figure out what they really were. It was nice to see the USA customs officials smiling, cheerful and helpful. We missed this kind of openness - all in all it was good to be home.

A casualty of the flight was Rachel's iPod Touch. Her camera I left in the restaurant Pod Kogutem on Saturday was found and will be mailed back. I lost one of my Easter palms, the smaller one, and it took me a week to get my circadian rhythm back on track.

Over the next few weeks I will fill out the rest of the story hopefully before memories get murky.

Guess this ain't blogging any more

Well it's the middle of May and all I have is the first 3 days and a little about the flight home posted. I guess this can't be called blogging because it's not current any more. I might have to rethink how I am going to work this site. It does take some time.

Anyway... I will finish the whole Poland '09 story as I get the chance. I have photos, I have notes and the memories are still fresh. So here it goes...