Throw Back Thursday

 This was taken in January 1991 on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.  Paris was a long time dream of mine.  I have a soft spot for all things French.  People thought I was crazy for making this trip, Bush bombed Baghdad on a Wednesday night, I left for Europe on Friday night. this was the first Gulf War. Airlines were cancelling flights left and right, at the last moment, KLM cancelled our flight from Orlando to Amsterdam, flew us to Atlanta on Delta and put us on a flight from  Atlanta to Amsterdam.  It was a memorable evening in airline history, Eastern Airlines ceased operations that evening, the airport in Atlanta was chaos.  KLM issued everyone new boarding passes, and 24 passengers and 12 crew members boarded a nearly new 747 for the flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam. They had over 100 no-shows for the flight.  They moved all of coach into business class and turned off the lights in the back of the bus. The plane taxied out on schedule, and then the pilot announced that due to all of the Eastern Airlines flights being ordered out of the sky, we would have over an hour wait on a taxi-way and they would be serving dinner before we took off.  The food was good, about 90 minutes after we took off, they served dinner a second time, they had food on board for the 100 people that didn't show up for the flight.  It was a good trip - 2-3 nights in Amsterdam, then flew onto Paris for 5 or 6 nights.  In Paris was the first time I saw government buildings (the US Embassy) guarded with machine guns.  We had a nice visit, the flight home was packed with US embassy staff from Europe and the middle east who had all been ordered home and had been instructed to fly in European flagged airlines (normally they only fly on US carriers.)  I have been back to Paris since then, and would go back again in a heartbeat.