In Case of My Demise?!

The traveling has begun. Well...it begins tomorrow. The tickets are bought and my bags are packed. Well...that's not true. It's only 8:14 pm the night before I leave so, of course, my bags aren't packed yet. I always wait till the last minute to pack. Don't know why except that I always do that. Call it one of my quirks.

The fridge is cleaned out, the garbage is bagged and ready to go out, the ipod is at this very moment being charged, and the selection of books to read on the plane are laid out. Yes, books with an (s) at the end. I'm a fast reader and the thought that I might go through a book or two and still have flying time left (after all, there's the flight out and the flight back) does something to me. Sort of like an anxious panic. The thought of nothing to do but stare at the back of the seat in front of me for hours on end because I've read everything I've brought with me (as well as every magazine in the seat pocket in front of me. including the duty free one.) makes my breathing increase and my hands get a bit shaky. Again, call it one of my quirks.

Speaking of my trip...did I tell you about my conversation over the phone with the USAir dividend miles agent when booking the trip? She asked for a contact number to enter into the system. Not thinking quite clearly, I gave her our home number. She replied (and these are her exact words), " We already have that number in our system. We need an emergency number to contact in case of your demise during the trip."

Seriously??! My demise? If I'm getting into a plane, especially when flying over an ocean, I don't want to think about my demise. I don't want anyone talking about my demise. Sheesh. I promptly felt it was my duty to tell the agent that perhaps they should come up with another word than demise when talking about emergency numbers for their customers. She stopped, thought for a second, and totally agreed that it should be changed in the manual. Great. But honestly...should there ever really have been any question about that?

So from here, I fly to Milan, meet Phil (whoo hoo), hop on the train to Venice, spend the weekend there, take the train back to Milan, spend a couple of days there, fly from Milan to London, spend a couple of days there, take a train to Paris, spend a couple of days there, and then fly back home. All in 10 days. Not sure how much access I'll have to the internet, but if I can, I'll blog about the trip en route. If not, I'll catch you up when I get back. With hopefully, lots of pictures. So...au revoir for now. (I don't know any Italian and besides bonjour, that's about the extent of my French.) (Why yes, I did have Mr. Farrell for French in high school.) Yep...should be an interesting trip.