I made it home on Wednesday after a very long day of traveling. I left Paris at 1:30 PM on Wednesday on Icelandair and flew to Reykjavik, Iceland. The flight was a little over 3 hours. Barely saw any of Iceland from air or ground since I was in a middle seat and the woman by the window had the shade down.

I didn’t get a seat assignment for the flight to Seattle in Paris, so I went to the information desk in Reyjkavik and, luckily, got assigned one there. Another middle seat but at least I was on my way home. It was a 7 1/2 hour flight to Seattle. Icelandair does not offer any extras like Delta does but it was better than I expected after reading some online reviews.

I don’t think I ever posted why the flights got so full. When I left in late February there were a lot of open seats on multiple days in late March. Then when I started looking again a couple weeks ago, they were booked up. European flights are not usually booked at the last minute so it was really strange.

Well, come to find out, Lufthansa pilots went on strike for 4 days, starting around last Thursday and ending on Monday. They ended up canceling something like 700 overseas flights. So, people were being re-booked onto other airlines. I also read that they were planning to strike again over the Easter weekend. However, it will be interesting to see whether they do after the horrific crash in the French Alps earlier this week. Especially after finding out it was intentional on the part of the co-pilot. What a horrible thing to happen. I feel so bad for the families of the victims.

I got into Seattle about 5:15 PM and Courtney got off work at 5:30, so he was able to go pick up his car and then get me. Made it nice not to have to wait at all.

It was interesting going through the new immigration and customs at Seattle. For US and Canadian citizens there are now kiosks where you scan your passport and answer the customs questions online. I also had filled out the custom form on the plane.

That went fairly smoothly except I knew I was going to be rejected because I had cheese and was over the dollar limit with my ring purchase. So, I then had to stand in another line to talk to an actual agent.

He saw the cheese part and I told him it was hard cheese over 60 days so he was like, okay, see ya. I asked about the ring purchase. Then he looked at the form a little closer and asked me how much I had spent. I said around $1100 (the official amount you can bring back is $800) and he said it was within his discretionary limit so, Welcome, Home! And off I sent.

It was cloudy and had rained recently, but it was still fairly warm. I was shocked at how much everything had grown, especially the weeds in the front flower beds! I had them all cleaned out before I left but it is unbelievable how much they have come back.

The tulips are up and blooming, the forsythia is covered in yellow flowers, the blueberries, Italian plum, Asian pear, and cherry trees are in full bloom.

Italian Plum Tree

Not many of the seeds I planted before I left came up. A few radishes, a collard green, and one fennel. I hope to get the rest of my seeds started indoors and/or planted outside in the next few days.

Today, Thursday, is a beautiful, warm day. It is 70 degrees now and I am sitting in the sun on the patio, writing this and communing with my chickens.

Cleo, my Easter Egger

Blackie is pecking at my fingers and toes. None of them have ever done that before.

Blackie , the toe pecker

I will be posting about my Paris food tour later and then will have at least one more post of Random Observations from my trip.