Dear family,
As I'm sure you already know, little Ikaika was born
on December 18th. We left on Friday
afternoon on our journey to go bring him home.
Booking a flight last minute on the Friday before
Christmas has little perks. One of those little gifts is a crazy high
price. Luckily for us, our travel agent
was able to book us business-class yet get a free upgrade to first-class on
Lufthansa which eased some of the pain to my normal frugality.
At least one employee was guiding us all the way
from check-in through the lounge and to our seats on the plane. They gave us a tour of the brand-new 747 –
800 aircraft and it is a beauty. There
were two huge bathrooms for the first class; all eight of us.
Everything was going fantastically well (awesome
champagne and wine along with a couple of interesting new friends) and
midflight I popped my Ambien and slept away. Unfortunately Keoni had a very upset stomach
and projectile vomited throughout one of the two nice bathrooms which Diane
started cleaning before the flight attendants simply closed it down.
Through a combination of a nice flat bed, my Ambien
and very comfortable Bose headphones, I missed the excitement of our son, a 3
year old running around and a loud snorer.
It should be noted that the 3 year old tapped me on my sleeping head and
called me "daddy." Luckily
after muttering something about pathetic parents who sleep through anything, I
rolled over and continued my comfortable slumber.
Keoni struggled through the rest of the flight, the
changing of planes in Frankfurt and the flight to Vienna. For those of you who for some reason think
that I totally shirked my parental responsibility in favor of Diane's
assistance, please know that I comforted Keoni from Frankfurt all the way to
our hotel in Austria.
My assistant Sharon had made arrangements with the
manager of Le Meridian hotel and they did an amazing job of taking care of
us. Fruit and veggies waiting in our
refrigerator, a very comfortable rollaway bed for Keoni and when they saw that
he was struggling, they ran out and got him some children's flu medicine and
some Christmas chocolates. He took the
medicine and passed out for several hours.
Diane and I did a short wander around Vienna (one of
our favorite cities) and got ourselves a quick sausage and a beer (photo on
Facebook). We then went back to check on Keoni who felt much better and joined
us for his own sausage which led Diane and me to two more beers.
We then crashed early in the hope of getting over 12
hours of sleep. Unfortunately that
didn't work out and at 3 AM Keoni and I rented the movie Airplane for €17. Two truths remain:
1. The movie is hysterical!
2. The humor is lost on Diane and "don't call me
Shirley."
As you can see by the photo, it is a snowy Vienna
morning and Diane, Keoni and I took a quick picture in front of the Opera house
before jumping in our car to the airport.
I write this to you from the gate at Vienna airport
for our flight to Kharkov, Ukraine. We are quickly getting closer to meeting
Ikaika...
Best,
Kyle
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