Bonne Journée

Activity level: 🌶️🌶️

Modes of transportation: 🚗👟🛫🚊

We woke up at 4:00 in the morning and our conversation went something like this:

Eric: “Ok, do you have all your bags. What are you going to do with those flowers?”
Sarah: “I’m bringing them with us.”
Eric. “We’re going on an international flight.”
Sarah: “So?”

We finished packing up and called a car to the airport. Sarah insisted on taking her flowers with her. (In her defense, she only had them for a day and they were too lovely to go to waste).

As we approached the business class counter to get our final tickets, a lady ran to us from behind the counter and told us to go in the other line for economy. We guess we looked pretty rough, but they were nice when we showed them our boarding passes. One last business class flight!

We were served crepes for breakfast. The flight was short as we had a layover in Vienna, before heading back to Dulles. No business class on this flight since it was full when we booked it, but the flight was a short one.

After the flight, we worked our way over to the lounge while we waited for our final flight of the trip.

We went searching for the lounge in the Vienna airport. Directions took us to a sketchy corridor.

We made it to the lounge and had time for a small meal and a quick nap. Sarah was very pleased with herself to still have the flowers.

We finally got to board our final flight back to the USA after 60 days away. To say it was a charmed departure would be an understatement.

First we got to our seats to discover plush blankets and pillows, along with a care packet of sleep masks and socks.

Then a chef (in a literal chef hat), came around to take our order and answer any questions on the menu.

To make sure the flowers made the trip, Eric asked for a glass of water and set it up in the seat back pocket.

All comfy cozy. Yes, we still use these sleep masks nightly. And yes, those are the roses in the top left.

Honestly, the food was some of the most vibrant of the trip, though maybe not the absolute tastiest! There was a sort of veal with spinach puree that was pretty ok, but the soup, also green, was good. As always, the cheese-for-dessert was excellent.

Eric also decided to get one of the fancy coffees, which came out in a too-hot glass. But it was delicious!

Enjoying every last bit of luxury before returning to reality.

Our last meal was a little sausage snack, as named by the airline. It was maybe not quite as picturesque as the previous meal.

We finally landed back in the US and sadly disembarked from our last flight. We did our usual and made our way through customs and immigration—but the officer looked at us kind of funny. He locked up our passports in a box and sent us to secondary screening (which was luckily the first time we had to get screened on our trip).

They sat us down in a waiting area with what looked like a lot of people having a very bad day. One guy was being denied entry to the country from Iran (though his wife was allowed to enter). We had the feeling we were there due to the flowers, but we weren’t exactly sure until they took us aside and ran the bouquet through the Xray machine one last time. The agent did one last check of shaking the flowers upside down to check for bugs, and let us go on our way.