It's Time to Fly.

Well, I am back at home in Chicago from my Dutch adventures, with a suitcase full of dirty clothes.  Thanks to United Airlines, I was upgraded to business class for my 8 1/2 hour flight home.  Unfortunately, that also means lots of free alcohol.  How can I turn down the glass of champagne that greeted me upon boarding?  Or the bottomless glass of chardonnay  Or the glass of port with dessert.  Three hours into the flight, while everyone else was either sleeping or watching some overrated Brad Pitt film, I was drunk, going to the bathroom every 15 minutes.  Fortunately, that finally turned into just a pounding headache, that finally went away with about an hour left in the flight.

Despite my in-flight abuse of alcohol, I couldn't fall asleep.  Fortunately, I had my iPod with me.  I love my iPod.  They're great - holds 15 MB of music, over a week's worth of different songs.   Even though I had fully charged myPod the night before, it died after just over four hours of use.  So, I listened to "United Pop 40" featuring the 'new' music of Lionel Richie.  Kill me now.

Speaking of airports, they are now shopping malls, especially in Europe.  It makes sense - you have a captive audience who really have no choice but to look around the stores while waiting for their flights.  But who is at the airport and says "wow, there's that Rolex I have been looking for" and spends $5,000 on the spot?  Sure, there is the occasionally person who splurges, but I saw more $10,000 (8,000 euro) watches at Schipol (Amsterdam airport) than at most jewelry stores.  Le bling-bling.