Helen FieldsScience Writer

The most annoying thing about Europe is the trouble it takes to get here. My flying experience, I must say, was really not that nice. The first flight, from Dulles to Newark, was in a turboprop, and it started out just fine – I fell asleep, which is my measure of a good flight, and was dozing peacefully when suddenly the plane started jumping up and down. We hit three patches in a row of serious unexpected turbulence. A coke went flying (and not onto the person who’d ordered it) and there was some minor shrieking. Also, the temperature inside the plane was about 300 degrees. I think we were all pretty happy to make it out alive.

I had a much worse moment on the second flight, though, the one from Newark to Berlin. We had to sit for two hours on the runway in Newark because of a storm, but that wasn’t the bad part – they turned on the entertainment system and brought around water and snacks, and the time went very fast. No, the problem was Atul Gawande’s book Complications, about learning to be a surgeon. When I bought this book at the airport, I forgot that I am totally squeamish. After I woke up Monday morning, I opened it up and got to about the fifth page, where he describes his first attempt to put in a central line. (It didn’t go well.) By the time I had the sense to close the book, I had broken into a full-fledged cold sweat and I thought I was going to throw up. Whoops. I really want to read this book, though – maybe I can get through if I take it a few pages at a time, and also avoid reading it in the window seat of a 757 after two hours of bad sleep.

Despite the moments of misery, I would recommend Continental – it wasn’t their fault I made a bad choice of reading material, and the pilot on the second flight was really good about keeping us updated and informed during the two hours of waiting.