The longest time associated with a journey is that spent awaiting its commencement. And so it was with this. Beryl, hereafter referred to as B4 (Big Business Beryl Beth) and I, newly engaged, have planned and are now beginning our longest journey away from our respective homes together. We have made many trips but, until now, not taken what one would call a true vacation.
"Two weeks," says B4, “is the longest vacation I've ever taken.”
“In how long?” I ask.
“Ever.”
I hesitate to tell her about the longest vacation I have ever taken. Readers of this series of stories about my travels can tell her what I am hesitant to admit. But then, I do not bear the responsibility she does and I have supporting me many who, more competent than I, are able to keep the wheels at home turning as they should.
For a woman who, first thing every morning, checks yesterday’s sales and margin numbers, this will be an interesting test. I hope to help her check only the tallies of her experiences each day and leave the business, for a short while, to others. Preparing for this day she has worked a series of twelve hour days and subsisted on short spans of sleep. She is ready for rest and I intend to provide it but in an adventuresome manner.
Should you decide to follow along with this blog, you can grade my performance. Frankly, however, it is only her grade for which I strive. It is her approval alone I seek.
After last minute scurries of packing and lost seat assignments, we are right on time to: leave the Sulgrave, arrive at Kansas City International Airport, depart on USAir 4464 at 11:32 to Philadelphia, hunker down for last minute paperwork at the Admirals Club and, finally, to depart on USAir 714 at 6:35 for the overnight non-stop to Venice.
Our Airbus A330 was assembled in France and, as I write this first entry the time is around 7:00 in the morning and we have just reached landfall over her birthplace in Calais after having crossed the English Channel, flown over Britian and Ireland, over the North Atlantic, over Gander Newfoundland and after having made our way from Philadelphia north over New York, Boston and Maine.
The transatlantic flight is billed as eight hours and thirty minutes and we are comfortable in business class seats 6C and 6F, “Privacy Shells” that occupy the center of a one-two-one configuration in the front of the plane. There are seven rows with row seven’s window seats reserved for off-duty pilots to sleep.
Seat 4C houses a young lady, Sam, of approximately six years life experience with a piercing voice and non-stop vocabulary. She is only partially supervised by her doting mother and aloof father along with a grandmother who is quite amazed at the wonders of this aircraft and unconcerned about the mayhem created by her children’s daughter.
The little one is sleeping now as we are approximately two hours from landing in Venice. I am tempted to walk past her seat, two rows ahead of me, while yelling back at B4 as she awakens from what I think was satisfactory slumber in spite of the din. I will not do that, of course, but only because of the startling effect it would have on my fellow travelers. Believe me, if it were only Ms. Longstocking and myself seated here, she would not be dreaming Goodnight Moon.
I watched a wonderful French film on the flight, half before falling asleep and the remainder upon awakening this morning. “Diplomacy” is adapted from a play and I missed seeing it during its short run at the Tivoli in Kansas City. It is the story of a Swedish diplomat who talked a German General out of destroying occupied Paris during the final hours before it was liberated by the Allies. As long as you are comfortable with subtitles, I recommend it highly.
Flying at just over 500 miles per hour, we are on a smooth journey of 4,300 miles with a scheduled arrival in Venice of 9:23am local time. That is 2:23am back home in Kansas City. It is minus 64 degrees centigrade outside as we buck a slight headwind at an altitude of 39,000 feet. We will be landing eighteen minutes behind our scheduled time in part due to a lengthy taxi back in Philadelphia.
The cabin of the aircraft is dark except for the glow from my laptop and a similar one eminating from the laptop of B4 on my right. I know what she is doing. She monthly pens her “Warren Letter” providing a narrative of the state of the company. I suppose he won’t know that it is early morning over France where this month’s issue is being composed nor will he care. That is not to say that he would not be pleased to know that B4 is taking a vacation; on the contrary, the two of them seem to have a warm and even affectionate relationship.
The cabin lights have just this moment been illuminated. We are exactly 90 minutes from landing and the breakfast service is now commencing. This is a fun time on a long flight if you are the observer who has been up for a bit, already having made your way to the lavatory for brushing of hair and teeth and straightening of mussed clothes.
To my left is an Italian man who graciously traded seats with me prior to departure so that B4 and I would be seated next to each other. He is still sleeping, sprawled on his back, left knee cocked, blanket pulled high over his head. To our far right, a young woman yawns and stares stupefied at the seatback in front of her having completed only a couple of hours of sleep peppered with Pippy’s piercing pronouncements.
My primary flight attendant server, Al, is a black man who, even without the haircut, reminds me of television’s Mr. T. Initially gruff, he instantly warmed when I asked his name while we still on the ground in Philadelphia. He shook my hand and we have been on a first name basis since.
On these long flights, business class travelers have a choice of departure meals. You can dine course by course of opt for the express meal served all at once. I always choose the later so that I can quickly recline my seat into the clever bed configuration and get as many hours of sleep as are possible. My tally was shorter than I would have liked on this flight due to…
WE INTERRUPT THIS MESSAGE FOR A BULLETIN. PIPPY HAS AWAKENED. SHE IS SLOWED NOT A BIT BY HER SHORT SLEEP. HER CLUELESS FATHER, ABRUPTLY AWAKENED, IS PRESENTLY ENGAGING IN LOUD CONVERSATION WITH BOTH HER AND HER MOTHER WHICH REQUIRES EXTRADORDINARY VOLUME. MOM IS AT MINIMUM FIFTEEN FEET AWAY FROM HIM AND WITH THE NORMAL CABIN NOISE INTERFERING, PROPER CONVERSATION REQUIRES SEMI-SHOUTS TO BE COMPLETED. PIPPY IS CLAD IN GREEN POLKADOT PAJAMA PANTS, A T-SHIRT AND BARE FEET WHILE SPORTING BRIGHT PINK HELLO KITTY HEADPHONES ATTACHED TO A VIDEO DEVICE OF SOME SORT AND IS NOW LOUDLY AWAKENING GRANDMA AND EVERYONE ELSE IN BUSINESS CLASS. COFFEE, ANYONE? (The Italian beside me has just now bolted wide awake)
You are familiar, I suspect, with “the headphone phenomenon.” When one is wearing headphones, one compensates when speaking, raising volume to compensate for whatever is being blasted into one’s ears. To the headphone wearer, that makes perfect sense. To everyone else, it is either distracting, unnerving or outright outrageous. With Pippy, it is the latter. She owns her parents and they have given up when it comes to controlling her. I suspect her first word, rather than DaDa or Mama was “No.”
As I watch Al make his way down the aisle toward me with his cart, he says, “Shh, sweetie, you have to sit down.” Pippy is oblivious but Al keeps his cool. He is a big man and in appearance unlike any flight attendant I can recall. Bearded, he wears his short sleeved uniform shirt open two buttons at the neck so that his crucifix is properly framed as it lies in a snug bed of chest hair. A well trimmed beard frames his face as his thinning crop of head hair betrays his seniority. I suspect that, at this point in his career, nothing fazes Al, that he has seen it all, and that he awaits the day when he can leave all this behind. He has thirty-one years at this job, he tells me. “It wasn’t planned that way,” he says as he rolls his cart to the next row after having provided me with scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee.
The eggs, having been scrambled many hours ago, then refrigerated and then re-heated are the consistency of grits and, by my estimation, inedible. B4 agrees and swaps hers for an elaborate fruit plate option which is quite good. I break my Atkins diet induction period at this moment and enjoy the abbreviated side dish of fruit which salvages my egg plate. That represents the first sugar I’ve had in a long while.
Three weeks ago, I tipped the scale at a worrisome 196 pounds so I reengaged with my trusty Atkins diet giving up all carbs, all sugar and alcohol while consuming strictly protein, green vegetables and salads. I am proudly at 180 as I begin this trip and I plan to return home two weeks from now still at that weight.
With a cruise in my future, I have my work cut out for me.
There will be more details about that as we progress. The overview is this: we will spend tonight in Venice at the Hotel Moresco, board the Norwegian Jade tomorrow and begin a seven night journey stopping at Corfu, Santorini, Mykonos and Olympia before returning to Venice where we have reserved three nights in an apartment secured through AirBnB. This is our first time using this internet lodging scheme and we are both excited and anxious about how it will turn out. We will depart Venice for London where two more AirBnB nights in a West End flat will bookend our chance to see Brian Sears play Elder Cunningham in the London production of Book of Mormon at the Prince of Wales theater. I saw him in the role for one performance in New York and he defies the stereotype that Arnold has to be a fat nerd. Brian plays him as a skinny nerd and it works beautifully. From London we fly via Dallas back to Kansas City two weeks from today.
Welcome aboard. Please ignore my musings if they annoy and enjoy them if they amuse secure in the knowledge that I enjoy writing them for me if not for you.
I pray that Pippy and her entourage are housed at someplace other than the Moresco.
Pippy's Dippy
Friday, June 12, 2015
Venice, Veneto, Italy
Other Entries
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1Departure
Jun 111 day priorKansas City, United Statesphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
2Smooth Layover
Jun 12earlier that dayPhiladelphia, United Statesphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
3Pippy's Dippy
Jun 12Venice, Italyphoto_camera3videocam 0comment 8 -
4Canals and Bridges and Masks; Oh My
Jun 12later that dayVenice, Italyphoto_camera9videocam 0comment 5 -
5Arrivederci! Venezia
Jun 131 day laterAdriatic Sea, Croatiaphoto_camera10videocam 0comment 2 -
6Jadriatic
Jun 142 days laterAdriatic Sea, Croatiaphoto_camera8videocam 0comment 4 -
7Corfu, Corfun, Corfubar, Corfu
Jun 153 days laterCorfu, Greecephoto_camera12videocam 0comment 5 -
8Dry Santorini, Straight Up, With a Twist
Jun 175 days laterSantorini, Greecephoto_camera14videocam 0comment 6 -
9Mykonos Knows Jewelry
Jun 186 days laterMykonos, Greecephoto_camera13videocam 0comment 3 -
10Catatonic in Katákolon
Jun 186 days laterKatákolon, Greecephoto_camera9videocam 0comment 1 -
11Sea Day, Spa Day, Great Day
Jun 197 days laterAdriatic, Croatiaphoto_camera4videocam 0comment 3 -
12Venice Will Wear You Out
Jun 219 days laterVenice, Italyphoto_camera14videocam 0comment 3 -
13Now we're cookin'
Jun 2311 days laterVenice, Italyphoto_camera15videocam 0comment 3 -
14We're worn out
Jun 2311 days laterLondon, United Kingdomphoto_camera1videocam 0comment 1 -
15The Book of Brian
Jun 2412 days laterLondon, United Kingdomphoto_camera13videocam 0comment 11
Comments

2025-02-10
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Debbie Meyer
2015-06-12
I love the blog! Keep it coming my way.
Congratulations to you and B4!!! Debbie
Amy Gulinson
2015-06-12
Congrats on your engagement!!!! What are your wedding plans?
Steve
2015-06-12
Wait...engaged? Congratulation!
Sue
2015-06-12
What an engaging writer you are! Very enjoyable....keep it coming, and I will now know why you're missing from the Early morning Trolley Trail walks!
Linda Lee
2015-06-12
My email address is LINDAKLEE1284@GMAIL.COM.
good thing Hal is not secretive about his phone! Unless you MEANT to leave me off the list??
Laurence
2015-06-13
Hey Paul, this is Laurence from Laurence, Sue, Roz & Norm you will remember our many adventures I'm sure!!!! Congratulations on your engagement, get in touch next time you are coming to London. Be great to see you and meet Beryl. We are in Majorca as I write, relaxing by the pool and having a laugh as usual.
Great blog by the way, enjoy your travels.
Betsy Sears
2015-06-15
Think of how Pippy would love to read this when she turns 21.
Wishing you daily adventures and fun and great new memories. Love you
Catherine
2015-06-21
Great news about your engagement!!!... ....and so pleased you are blogging again!!