After an uneventful flight dawn came with a view looking down on Portsmouth and across the channel towards Normandy. It's a much more beautiful day than June 6, 1944, but it's not too hard to picture the thousands of ships in stormy seas that made up the D-Day invasion force, or the skies filled with 11,000 aircraft. It's 7am, around the same time the beaches were first being stormed. This afternoon we'll be on the other side.
Very quickly we're over France, whose patchwork fields, villages and meandering rivers look so much prettier from the air than most of the US. Great view of the Eiffel Tower on the way in. Made it!
Random travel notes: From the announcements in MSP last night it sounds like William and Carolyn Hitler didn't make the flight. Travel tip of the day: On a red eye to Europe always station a brother at your destination the night before with hotel so you can grab a shower. Most civilized landing ever. Between that a five hours of sleep I'm ready to go!
Hey Eric -
ReplyDeleteI got your message about your sandwich. It looked so good I thought you might have second thoughts about tossing it, so I put it in your file cabinet for safe keeping so you can have it when you get back. You're welcome!
- Mike