Delta 46: Back to Russia

Yeah! Arrived Rostov Saturday, early evening. Sunny, warm, 31 degrees Celsius, on the very cusp of summer. And oh, how wonderful to be back to my very own flat-sweet-flat, small and humble as it is, it's mine. More or less. =)

Over the years, I've become partial to Delta. And flying Delta to Moscow means flying through either Atlanta or JFK, New York. Back in early April when I arrived in the US, I came through Atlanta to spend time with dear Natasha, the little girl recently adopted from a Rostov orphanage by a family in the Atlanta area. And what a fine time we had!

A perk of leaving the US through Atlanta is crossing paths with troops who are being deployed to Iraq. You can imagine the farewell scenes there between soldiers and their families. I find myself teary too. In fact, that would be a blog topic right there, telling you what a weeping ninny I turned into just trying to express my appreciation to a man who was leaving, his wife and three little ones. But, moving right along. . .

Here's Delta 46 getting gassed up for the big trip to Moscow's Sheremetevo-2 airport. Just one minute earlier, a pilot was leaning out of the window talking to someone on the ground. Hey there Mr Pilot, Surely you could take a minute to smile for us! Somehow I couldn't seem to get his attention, albeit through two sets of windows, to lean out and smile for us.

As we whiz over the big pond, here's a peek at the folks in the next cabin. Those individual monitors are so interesting. Have you ever had access to one? It was fun to spy a bit to see what people are watching. The hands-down favorite was Flight Information - the program that switches between a screen showing the plane on it's path, another with flight data (speed, altitude, outside temperature) and another screen with time at destination, time at point of departure, time remaining in the flight and such.

The Inflight Trivia Game was my favorite and it allows passengers to compete. I actually won it quite a few times. Perhaps I should confess right here and now that sometimes I was competing no one except myself, the only player sometimes. But still, several questions I was able to answer thanks to blogging (What was the first animal in space?) or because of living in Russia (What countries border on Lithuania?)

How about you dear blog reader, have you been on a flight where you had your own monitor? What's your favorite in-flight programming? Music? Games? Movies? Or reading and cross-stitch, which are my other favorites. There's plenty of time to fill on a 10 1/2 hour flight.

Here's Iceland from the air. Do you you happen know anybody there? Well, amazingly enough, I do! Happens that I crossed paths with a dear Christian sister, Sigi from Reykjavik, at several lectureships. So hello to Sigi in Iceland! The shot above looks like southeast corner of the island but Reykjavik was way over on the southwest corner of the island.