The take off from Seattle was completely uneventful, which is always a good start.
After the usual "blah-dy-blah" about the safety, they introduced the seat back video systems on KLM's A330. The flight attendant literally said "There is a delay when you press the buttons. That is how the system works." The "user interface expert" in me just found that amazingly funny. They didn't say "this is by design" - the usual cop out. No apologies for the delay, but it's bad enough that they had to mention it. If it's bad enough to mention, shouldn't they FIX it?
Then shortly after take off they said they had to reboot the seat back system. First off, they said it would take 20 minutes. I found that odd. 20 minutes to reboot a computer system? Then the further said that your seatback would not be able to move during this time. Maybe I misunderstood - but just how bad could they design this that the seatbacks are controlled by the same system as the seat back video system.
During the reboot, up pops the Linux Penguin. This of course made me laugh. (As an aside, this apparently also happened during the flight Ruben and the kids took, as well as our flight back from Amsterdam -> Detroit 2 weeks later.).
I couldn't sleep during the flight so I knit, watched "Thank you for Smoking" (a must see), "Akeelah and the Bee" (predictable, but still a good movie) and "Lucky Number Slevin" (whidh was also good, despite the violence. There's a bit of a twist to that movie that I figured out early, but it still was good).
Somewhere over Greenland we saw "Sunset" towards the back of the plane and we turned slightly south. It never got perfectly dark, however.
The cresent moon over the wing was really pretty though.
At one point I looked out the window and saw a city of lights in the middle of "no where" in the ocean - it may have been Iceland. Then An hour? or so later, the sun "rose" off the front of the plane.
As we were landing in Amsterdam, the sudden realization that I was vacationing solo in another country and continent really hit.
