Despite lots of great potential content, I didn’t write much about our fabulous trip to Europe last spring.* Over the next couple of weeks, I will rectify that by sharing snippets from my travel journal in the “Looking back at . . . ” series.
Flight to Rome, March 26, 2011
Being kicked out of my exit row seat on the Ryan Air flight from London to Rome was only the beginning of the fun. Oh wait, actually, the fun began before that, with the super-strict carry-on allowance (which we fortunately knew about ahead of time) and the chaos and stress of the boarding free-for-all. We were decompressing after managing to get seats together, seats that even had leg room, when a flight attendant informed me that I would need to relocate for take-off and landing. Apparently all pregnant women are considered “persons of impaired mobility” and incapable of performing exit row functions. Ahem!
After take-off, I hightailed it back to my rightful seat, where I spent the rest of the flight enduring a barrage of sales pitches. They started with lotto tickets then moved on to electronic cigarettes, which could be smoked in-flight. Blood boiling and contemplating the wisdom of opening the emergency exit while in flight, I watched the flight attendant walk most of the length of the plane without selling any cigarettes.
I thought we had escaped with the air quality of the plane intact until they brought out the next item for sale, announcing that they had testers available for people to try the scents. Are you kidding me?!?! Testing perfume on an airplane?!?!? Fortunately, my passengers seemed equally uninterested in this offer.
Luckily, the scheduled two hour flight was closer to an hour-and-a-half, which is the only thing that saved us from the final product offer, wherein the flight attendants would have announced the presence of poisonous vipers on the plane and come through the aisle selling anti-venom at the low, low price of 85 euro per dose.
*Apparently, I did write a few posts immediately after the trip:
- In case the environmental impact of the flight itself weren’t enough
- London
- Edible souvenirs
- Traveling while pregnant
- Last day in Rome
Her Green Life 
Holy Moly! I haven’t been on an airplane since 1993, and to tell the truth, I haven’t missed it at all! Congratulations on not popping the emergency exit mid-flight!
I don’t fly much, but if all flights were like this one, I probably wouldn’t ever fly.