As I start this it’s 5am, and I am at Berlin Tegel airport. At 3:30am I got in the taxi with my stuff, which I think is pretty compact for two weeks. 
The purse and backpack are carefully packed. Heavy things (eg laptop, camera) and stuff I won’t need on the plane (spindle) go in the backpack, as thats the better way to carry the majority of the weight. Lighter items and things I will want on the plane are in the purse (knitting, ipad). This also minimizes last minute fussing with what goes where when I board. It’s high vacation season so there will be enough families with small children needing to get settled without a single traveler like myself adding to the chaos.
All fluffies have made it through the first round of security. I have two more flights and two more countries to go through, so I have not pulled my laptop, liquids etc… from my bag for the last time yet.
My socks are on their maiden voyage, and I have my trusty hand spun mohair shawl with me. Its very warm for its weight, making it an excellent travel piece. Mohair is also tough.
I also have plenty of time for drop spindling at the airport. Sometimes I get questions when I do this, but at 5am nobody is awake enough to be curious.
Next stop: CDG.
8am-10am – we land in Charles de Gaulle in France. Because this was not my original route – it was changed late Wednesday night due to air traffic control issues in Amsertdam – I have to find an Air France desk to get my next boarding passes. Then I back track to the K gates for the US bound flights – through passport control (where I get stuck for 10min behind somebody trying to argue something other than a passport should be accepted at a passport control point), and then 30min in line at the only place with coffee and food near my gate. So I get to my gate as they begin boarding. Thus, no fluffy action while in CDG.
However, I have a nice long plane ride across the Atlantic, so I get a fair bit done, including a few rounds on the cowl. I reached the heel on my Rauros socks and realize I have a challenge ahead of me – the pattern calls for a heel type, Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato heel, which I’ve never done before and recommends watching an online video, which I of course cannot get to on the plane. How is it that I’ve done two socks in a row with new heels after years of pretty much just doing heel flaps?
I decide to procede with just the written instructions and figure I’ll make it work with my general knitting knowledge. I think they’ve come out ok, but I’ll need some sleep before I tackle watching the video to see if I got it right.
In Detroit I miraculously get through passport control and going back through security screening with an extra 30min to chill and knit, despite having my backpack pulled for a more thorough search. I also snapped a pic of my collective craft projects for the trip:
And now I’m sitting at my MIL’s in what I feel is the underappreciated chair and foot rest by the south window. Maybe it’s because nobody else is a knitter so they don’t appreciate the good light from the window as much, but it means I rarely have competition even when the house is full (as opposed to just me and MIL).
My watch says it’s 6:45pm, but if we convert that back to the time zone I started in, it’s 12:47 am Aug 17th, nearly 21hrs after I left the house.
Oh, and my new socks are a win. Nearly 24hrs straight in boots minus a few minutes in security, and I don’t have smelly, swollen or otherwise unhappy feet.