EuroTour 2010, Day 48, Bonn to Paris to Los Angeles

Is today really the day?  The day that we fly home?  It is nearly an absurd notion.  Absurd but true.

This day begins with a special treat.  One last visit with Amanda, Gillian, and Charlie.  Then we are off to the airport.

When children wave good-bye through a window, part of your heart stays with them.

Düsseldorf airport.  From here, it is a short step to Paris.


Airport Candid, Düsseldorf.  August, 2010.


This is not a candid, because Barbie is looking directly at me from the center of that escalator.


A shorter trip often equals, gasp, walking up steps to get on the plane.  Where am I, Burbank?


I was amused by the trio of Air Berlin jets jockeying for the main runway.


Auf wiedersehen, Deutschland.


You know me.  The moment when the airplane clears the cloud-line is always worth capturing.

Soon we were on the ground at Charles de Gaulle.  Last year I bothered saying why this man was important enough for one of the world's most important cities to name their airport after him.  This year I challenge you to either look it up on the Waste (the search box works quite well) or google it yourself.  But I will tell you this, which I likely left out last year.  As a Brigadier General during World War II, de Gaulle lead a successful armored attack against the Wehrmacht during the fall of France.  In other words, the American impression that the French tossed their guns to the ground and begged the Germans to not scratch any of their buildings is both inaccurate and insulting.

While taxiing around Charles de Gaulle, you often get to pass this Concorde on display.  It made me wish I'd had the chance to fly on it just once.  I mean, that sucker took the eight hour flight from New York to Paris and did it in three and a half.  It also made me think that the French and British must have been awful proud while that plane was in the air.  To think that their top airliner was the fastest in the world, even if it operated at a loss, must have been a source of pride.

Okay.  Seriously.  I had to take this one and you have to click here and look at it full-size.  Like, you have to.  I bothered to not reduce the size of that picture for you, the Waste reader.

I was close to extremely miserable on this flight.  The truth is that I have not felt completely well since the Molli train's coal smoke attacked my lungs, and the dry, thin air of this flight made feel about as horrible as possible.  I could not eat or sleep.  I just laid there, my head aching, with a blanket over my head trying to capture the moisture in my expiration so that the air I was breathing would not hurt as badly.


When I saw that, my heart leapt with expectation.  Could we really be that close to home for the first time in seven weeks?


Home.


Los Angeles International Airport.  For the umpteenth time, I say that the eldest buildings here are the most futuristic.


That was our ride for I think just over ten hours.  We arrived very early, which means that some deity pitied my suffering and sent us a tail wind.


Let me tell you, we got our bags off the carousel, kissed my parents good-bye, walked out of the airport and only had to take maybe fifteen steps before we were inside this waiting taxi.

The Los Angeles sunset, through the tinted taxi window.

Anytime one is travels a great distance in one day, the math has to be done.  In this case, we woke up at 7:30 AM in Bonn, Germany.  That is 10:30 PM in Los Angeles.  We arrived in Los Angeles at 7 PM, and walked through the door of our home at 7:30 PM.  Add it up and that is 21 hours, door to door.

We are glad to be home.  I have often closed the Waste with Until tomorrow..., but today I leave you with Until I travel again or do something else Waste-worthy.  And guess what?  As much as I would like to say that after this seven week extravaganza I will be home for the next few months, next month I am apparently going to Hawaii for someone's birthday and Vegas with some of my oldest friends.

Stay tuned.