Goldfish For Lunch

Linda Lou Burton posting from Flight # LX8300, Edelweiss Airlines, Keflavik Airport, Iceland – Got your calculator? Here’s a math problem for you. If you leave Zanzibar at 10:30 PM Tuesday and land in Zurich at 6:10 AM Wednesday; then leave Zurich at 1 PM and arrive in Iceland at 2:55 PM; and you change time zones by 3 hours overall, what time do you eat lunch? The entire issue becomes irrelevant I suppose, when you fly Edelweiss. Because they give you Goldfish to munch on any time you please! I grabbed a handful of Goldfish bags the minute they were offered and stacked them greedily in my lap.

I was living in high country now; our seat row was just behind the curtain separating us from business class (a step up for sure, at least we’re breathing the same air!); I had adequate foot room, and I had a window seat! The flight time from Zurich to Reykjavik’s International Airport was under four hours, so much less daunting that the “getting into Africa” adventures had been. Rick and I both were excited, not quite sure how the climate change was going to hit us. And, for the first time, we were totally on our own. No Globus guides running interference for us or drivers aiming to honor all our whims and preferences. “Flying solo and eating Goldfish,” I laughed to Rick, looking out my window, hoping to see an Alp or two.

All I saw was green, the brilliant, well-tended green of well-watered farmland; houses neatly rowed in villages. No elephants, no zebras, no giraffes. We flew over the edges of Germany and France; we flew above Belgium, the Netherlands, Scotland. The North Sea. The Atlantic.

Now we’re in Icelandic territory (it’s part of Europe but you can’t get there by car!); the landscape has an unfamiliar look. The ground is a different shade of green; the houses lower; the skies grayer. There’s the airport. The attendant has collected all my empty Goldfish bags so I’m done eating now, and I can give you a surprising factoid about Reykjavik’s International Airport – Keflavik. It was built by the US military during WWII!

Think about that, and Iceland’s role during the war. Meanwhile, Rick and I will be hunting for a way to get to our hotel. Jackets on.

Zurich Airport https://www.flughafen-zuerich.ch/en/passengers

Keflavik Airport, Reykjavik, Iceland https://www.isavia.is/en/keflavik-airport

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