Lemonade

Yes, isn't there a saying "if you get lemons make lemonade" ? 

If you read the previous blog you know what I am talking about. The CDC guidelines are pretty clear. 5 days of quarantine in your house, 5 more days of seriously masking if you have to go somewhere. Well, for 10 days I stayed put. We wore masks all the time even in our house. Well, actually, I spent a lot of time on our back patio but I already wrote about that.

We played our card games and at 5 o'clock we used 'disinfections'. 

CDC: after 10 days it's back to normal. Of course we are always careful.

If you have a computer you can google. We found out that the airline doesn't require any testing. And England doesn't require testing for entering into the country either. We knew that life seems to be "normal" again from James' family. So, I suggested to James to use the flight credits we still had from 2 years ago for a visit to his family.  We are scheduled to go on a small ship cruise in September (rebooked from 2 years ago) and were planning to see his family then (and celebrating James' 80th birthday) but it occured to us that we can't really count on these plans happening. Times have changed. 

So on Sunday (May 22) James tried to call American Airlines but they seem to be very busy right now. He had the option to have them call back when it was 'our' turn. After 3 hours they did call back and 'Denise' was very nice and helpful. We didn't want to risk to have the long wait again and decided on the dates. The major thought about the dates was that we needed to be back in time for William's visit in Virginia. 

After that we contacted family in England. Kate and David were very happy and asked what we would like to do. Of course we would like anything but mentioned that Ireland was on our list. May be there was some few days tour one could do?

But oh, oh, Jane is not home. From Heathrow Airport to Windsor on Thursday is not an option. James found a hotel in London which will be just fine because we really wanted to go to the British Museum anyway. Hopefully you can read about that in a later blog.

In the meantime Kate and David let us know that they booked the flight for us 4 from Bornemouth to Dublin. They are this week on a camping place and asked for us to find the occomodations. Ups, that turned out a bit of a problem. Sarah's wonderful friend Hannah, who's husband is from Ireland, gave us good pointers about what would be great to visit, but all of Ireland vacation houses seemed to be taken. I started to stress because everytime we found something "just right" and wanted to book it the computer thought about it and then said "not available". Finally we found a nice place and are happy. Hope the other two will like it too.

With Jane being on a hike in Wales we thought we could not reach her because she usually doesn't take her computer but I finally decided to send an email anyway that we might show up on her door step on Saturday. I was very surprised to find an answer the next morning. Wished we had known that she could read it. May be she would have liked to join us in Ireland?

Wednesday May 25

Our first flight was at 4:05 pm but it would give us a very narrow connection in JFK. We were ready early and decided to go to the airport anyway. James called an Uber and at noon we were on our way. Wow, was there a long line at the check-in. No problem. James has lifelong premium status. Very nice. Right away we were put onto an earlier flight. Brilliant.

And our seats were in business class. But probably only on the domestic flight. Richmond was cloudy and nothing to see but New York was lovely. I am sure I did see the Statue of Liberty!

American Airlines has it's own terminal and since we had a longer lay-over we could go into the admirals lounge (again with James' card). 

Lemonade has turned into complimentary champagne. 

There was a buffet where we could find hot and cold, savory and sweet things.

The boarding started at 5:30 pm and the gate to our flight was almost opposite the club. Since we were in tourist class James wished for exit seats. His long legs prefer that. 

Flight socks on. Ready. The plane left exact to the minute.

Ha-ha, airline food. Good thing we had already nibbled.

James said that he slept somewhat but of course I didn't. The flight took only 7 hours and the plane had to fligh circles because they are not allowed to land too early. But that is tomorrow's blog.