Because our itinerary is international, we had to check in for our flights at the full-service checked luggage counter. Fortunately, there wasn’t much of a line, so that went quickly. While we were at the counter, we decided to throw our bags on the scale to see what they weighed…Dave’s pack was 23 lbs, my large pack was 17 lbs and my smaller pack was 12.5 lbs.
The line for security was also relatively short, so we were at our gate for around 9:30. Boarding started at 10:25 and all went smoothly getting out of New Orleans and into Chicago.
In Chicago, our arrival gate was one spot away from our departure gate, so that was really nice to be so close. We decided to grab a quick lunch before our 3:30 departure and then boarded shortly after chowing down, around 2:50 p.m. Pushing back from the gate was a bit delayed due to some minor maintenance issues & required inspections – I think it was about 3:45 when we backed up. However, after rolling back just a couple hundred feet, we stopped and waited for about a half hour. At around 4:15 the captain announced that additional maintenance had to be performed, and 15 minutes later he announced that we would actually have to pull back up to the gate because one of the fire extinguishers in the pilot’s cabin was expired & had to be replaced. He stated that it would take about 30 minutes because the aircraft would have to be re-inspected due to the fact that we had pulled away from the gate & were returning. Finally, at about 5:15 we pushed back from the gate for the 2nd time. We rolled along a few hundred feet to come to another stop, this time the captain announcing that there was a thunderstorm that would cause delays in our taxiing out to the runway (sun was shining brightly outside of our windows, so this was even more frustrating to hear). At about 5:45, while still waiting in the spot we had been sitting in, the captain announced that we would have to wait for a couple of small planes to move out of our path before we could continue on to the runway…we could see the small planes to the right of our aircraft, and he said that they were ‘hanging over the safety line’. Finally, at about 6:05, a truck pulled up with a couple of guys in reflective vests with the orange traffic directing sticks. One of them walked along the ‘safety line’ and flagged our plane to move forward. Turns out that the other planes were not actually over the safety line and we could pass them without issue. At 6:13 we were finally in the air.
Besides the assortment of delays leaving Chicago, the flight was mostly pleasant. The plane had 2 aisles from the front to back, with 2 sets of seats on the left & rights sides, plus a set of 3 seats in the middle. We were seated in an exit row near the right wing, which meant lots of legroom and no neighbor. Dinner came through about an hour after takeoff – I had cheese ravioli and David had beef roast with mashed potatoes. We also each had a complimentary wine – which came in at around 3 times the size of standard airline alcohol bottles. The dinner also came with cheese, crackers, a bread roll, and a brownie. After dinner, we daydreamed for a bit about all of the other places in the world that we would like to travel…Italy & Greece, the UK, countries around Germany, South & Central America, etc, etc, etc…perfect thoughts for drifting off to sleep.
The flight from Chicago to Helsinki was approximately 8 ½ hours in duration, so we had about 5-6 hours to sleep. I woke up this morning to the smell of warm croissants and coffee. By the time we finished breakfast, there was only an hour or so to landing.
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