April 27 - Had a problem getting away. In bending over to find something in his suitcase, Ed pulled a muscle in his right hip. It was so painful, he couldn’t sit at all. He found if he lay down on the left side, he felt more comfortable. I massaged the area with some Arbonne icy hot stuff and it relieved it. When Mike Burrows came to take us to the airport, he gave Ed a blessing. The pain finally subsided and we were on our way. We got away about a half hour later than planned, but everything went pretty uneventful other than we waited about an extra 30 minutes on the runway. Soon we were on our way to Chicago.
We arrived at the Chicago airport about 15 minutes late, with only about an hour to make our connecting flight to Vienna. We had to take a tram from one part to another. The next part was a long walk to the terminal. Fortunately, the Lord sent an angel to aid us in the form of a man in an electric cart. He offered to take us to the terminal, which we gratefully accepted. Had he not offered, we would most certainly have missed our flight.
Most people had boarded when we got there. Our seat assignments had not been given. Another couple we had met on our previous flight were waiting for seats when we got there. We waited 20-30 minutes until the ticket lady called us to come and get our boarding passes and enter the plane. We walked down the gangplank and turned into the plane. We were told to go down different aisles. We turned another corner and then we entered “The Enchanted Forest.” We were assigned the last row of First Class. We could not believe it. We had twice the space of economy, our own private 17 inch TV screen, headsets would have rivaled Bosemans, and seats that went flat complete with sheets, a comforter and a soft miniature sized pillow. Dinner was a seven course affair. For the main course I chose steamed cod heaped with sautéed vegetables and a tasty red tomato sauce with veggies. Ed had prime beef and asparagus. We lost ourselves in the all the comforts of first class. It was a mini vacation all itself.
I had followed Kim’s suggestion and asked the stewardess if they did anything special for birthdays. She said “No,” but said, “What would you suggest?” I countered with “What is there. What would you suggest?” She said, “I could speak to the pilot and see if your husband could come and sit in the cockpit with him.” My eyes widened and I said, “That would be wonderful?” She then indicated that she would talk to the pilot and let us know.
April 28 - At about 1:00 a.m. (having crossed the time zone, it was not April 28) she came back to our seats and told us that the pilot had invited us to come back. Most of the airplane was asleep. And so, on Ed’s 69th birthday, we were ushered into the cockpit of a B767. We spent the next 20 minutes sitting in the jump seats and visiting with the copilot and pilot, both Austrians. It was delightful. Below, we could see the ice flows off the coast of New Foundland.
On the Northern horizon, the sky glowed red against the clouds, where the sky never totally goes dark. For Ed, it was pure delight and a great memory. Shortly before our nine hour flight ended, the beautiful long blond ponytailed stewardess came back and gave him a photocopy of the flight plan that we had been shown in the cockpit. On the back he was wished a Happy Birthday and the entire crew had signed it.
We arrived at our hotel around 6:00 p.m. Dinner at the hotel (served at 7:00 p.m.) was absolutely delicious, with three meat choices and delicious cooked vegetables. We were a little leary of eating raw vegetables in Jordan. We also got to meet a few more couples who had joined our trip. Ed's hip was starting to act up again. Probably because he could not get totally comfortable aboard the plane during the night's sleep. I put Ed's birthday card on his pillow during an unsuspecting moment. When he opened it, it was a tender moment.
The bed was a little hard. I thought it would be okay, but Ed complained from the get-go. Soon the muscle pain was back in his hip. Neither of us slept much that night. Ed was in a lot of distress. In the middle of the night, i massaged his hip and we folded the comforter and put under it, hoping the padding would help. By morning things were pretty bad. We ate breakfast and checked out of our room.
