Outbound, by the way. Finally, it seems. Feels like we’ve been preparing for this trip longer than any I can remember. But we’re finally underway. Nearly done with the first leg, in fact. About an hour outside of London, descending into morning from the Arctic night in extreme comfort. D prevailed on me that we should fly the long legs of this trip business class, so I’m riding along, on the top deck of a British Airways 747, fully reclined in a practically self-enclosed motorized pod with more buttons than my 9th grade social studies teacher. Flying backwards, too (my ‘pod’, not Mrs. Loyacono). Devon’s in a matching pod, attached so that, if we wanted, we could arm wrestle.

We each have something like 100 movies on our respective screens, but no way to watch them together. So, given the west-to-east transition and morning arrival, we opted to ignore all but one of the buttons at our disposal: “fully recline seat bed”.Yes, it’s nothing more than a reaaaaally expensive hotel, but with the coast of Ireland peeking through the undercast, I can’t think of a better night’s sleep I’ve had a 40,000′.