Europe Road Trip
Sept 14-28, 2018
Friday, Sept. 14 Uncasville- Logan Airport, Boston- Dublin, Ireland
“Say hello to Jorgen and Betty.”
This is it! Our day of departure after planning this trip for a year! Shortly before we leave our home, I get an e-mail from my cousin, Helen. “Say hello to Jorgen and Betty” she writes. I laugh out loud because my cousin Jorgen on Bornholm Island in Denmark is married to Jette, not to any Betty! I understand that this is just a typo and I enjoy the laugh. The refrigerator is cleaned out, we are packed and in the car heading for the airport shuttle bus in Braintree, Mass.
We are excited about this trip. Our main goal is to strengthen family ties by meeting and visiting my Danish cousins in Denmark and Belgium and to visit with my wonderful longtime friend, Gudrun, in Hamburg, Germany. Also we plan to explore some large cities and small towns along the way…in short to sight see; to see what we can see and do what we can do.
We are on our way to Braintree, Mass where we will leave the car and take the shuttle bus to Logan Airport. We pass a few “weigh stations” on the highway. “Don’t you dare drive in there and put me on the scale,” I tell Al. “Overload, overload,” Al quips. “One at a time please!” We always make jokes about the weigh stations.
By 1:00 p.m. we are on the shuttle bus headed for the airport. We pass under Boston through two tunnels and then suddenly there it is before us; the airport! We check in with Air Lingus Airlines just fine at the terminal. It is 3:00 p.m. now and we are starved. We head for an airport restaurant for a beer and a sandwich. Our flight to Dublin is on schedule. The airplane is packed with travelers sitting close to each other in rows. Al and I are seated very near the “Toilette”. When I flush the toilet, it makes such a loud noise, I jump when I hear it! We are on an overnight flight to Dublin Airport in Ireland.
I notice that the lady sitting next to Al has pulled the fleece blanket over her face that the stewardess handed each of us and that she is sleeping. “What a good idea,” I think. I pull my blanket up over my face and doze on and off for the rest of the night.
