Back home

I said in my last post that it would be around midnight when I got back to Bloomington, but it was actually nearly 3 a.m., around 29 hours after I woke up in Paris. The last flight of the day, New York to Indianapolis, was delayed by a couple of hours, for reasons I never did entirely understand. (My overall impression of JFK last night was that no one really knew what was going on.) If any of the six flights making up the trip had to be delayed, that was the best one for it; it didn't involve missing any connections or missing out on time in Paris. But still, JFK is not a place that makes you feel like it's good to be in the U.S.

The European part of the trip was great, though; Finnair treats its passengers very well, even the ones in economy. Despite a glimpse of Iceland and an excellent view of Greenland on the long haul over the North Atlantic, the afternoon seemed to go on forever (we left Helsinki at around 2:00 in the afternoon and arrived in JFK, seven time zones to the west, around 3:15 3:45 or so). I was very grateful when, about two hours before we reached New York, the flight attendants came down the aisle, plucking piping hot wet paper napkins out of a basket with a pair of tongs and dropping one on each passenger's tray. Next came a sandwich; this was in addition to a tasty hot lunch at the beginning of the flight. If you are going to spend 8 hours or so at 30,000 feet, Finnair seems to be a good option.