Just So You Know

I haven't forgotten about the blog.  Thursday was our long day of travel home.  10½ hours Paris/Houston, 4 hours layover, then 3½ hours to Phoenix.

However, (in life there are always "howevers") well into the trans-Atlantic leg, a urinary tract infection took hold of me & progressed rapidly.

Long story short, arrived Phoenix Thursday evening in misery, spent a miserable night.  Off to the Urgent Care center as early Friday morn as they would take me, saw the doc & began the mend.  It wasn't until today/Sunday that I felt like anything.

I will do the Canal St. Martin post by Tuesday latest altho it may not be distributed until Wednesday.

Some comments on the flight.  We flew Air Canada over, Continental back.  The entertainment system on Air Canada is far, far superior to Continental.

What I did do right on Continental was to pay extra on the trans-Atlantic flight for bulkhead seats that gave us more leg room & more overall room in front of us, sort of a mini-cabin.  What it didn't do was allow is to recline further.  In Economy, it is so minimal.

The bulkhead was the separation between Economy & First Class.  So I got a ring-side seat to see what paying thousands of dollars extra gets you. You get a more comfy seat, only 5 across vs. 7 across in Economy & a much better recline.  You get hundreds of dollars in better food & drinks.

Is it worth it?.  At our age, if you can afford it, hell yes.  But a flight to Europe is marginal cost/benefit-wise.  Back in 2007 when we flew to New Zealand, I paid 100,000 miles per seat for Business Class (the flights are excruciatingly long) & was glad to do it.  It would've cost the same 100K miles per seat for Paris, not worth it.  We paid 55,000 miles each for these seats plus $398 total for the bulkhead & preferred check-in & boarding.

OK, I've blathered on photo-less long enough.  See you later this week.