I bet the labor agreements will be worked out by then. I think it is just a huge threat -- to strike at one of the busiest times of the year. I hope so. This trip was to be our gift to both my daughter and son - that they could spend the holidays together. They are very close and I knew that it just wouldn't be the same if my son wasn't here for Christmas. Since my daughter had this time off and had never been to Europe, I thought it would be perfect. My son has been rather homesick, so this would be a great antidote!

Thank you for posting that. Interesting reading and great list. We have been feeding our pup Eagle Pack Holistic for about 8 months now and we're big fans. Nice to see it made the list. :)

I agree with all of the posters who are frustrated with the people who cram huge bags into the overheads (how did they get on with them - I am lucky to get on with my "regulation" size) - and then continually get up and open the compartment which results in items falling on the heads of passengers who are sitting under said compartments and who have had to put their bags at the end of the plane because their space has been taken over by an "unauthorized" user. The other problem is that there are various sizes of planes. I have been on a 5 hour flight in a seat that could not accommodate my purse - a regular size purse under the seat in front of me. There isn't a woman in the world who doesn't know what size a regular purse is - despite the women trying to carry on purses the size of a garment bag. And this was on Air Canada - not a discount airline, so I can only imagine what will happen. We were recently in New York and my husband was lucky to get on with his small carry-on and laptop just in its sleeve, whereas others were being zipped through with huge bags. I have found it best to make sure your carry-on weighs less on your home scales. I know what our bags weigh empty - and once packed - and I leave a 2 or 3 lb. window to allow for the airport's scales weighing high - and it happens. In New York I bought a 6 lb. carry-on at Brookstone and could have sold it 3 times over during the walk back to the hotel (without the box). I then found my husband happily putting his laptop in it - get your own! There was another bag - bigger - and of course $40 cheaper. The sales associate told me that it would weigh in at 7 lbs. - I suggested 10 lbs. So out came her scale - 9.9 - so she told me she was right. Well, I had to point out that I was "more right" than she was! She then tried to sell me a scale so that I could prove to security/check-in that my bag was not overweight - as if that is ever going to happen. Clearing customs in Toronto for the U.S. was something else this go round. What I hate - even though I do understand the rationale - is that if my husband and I are travelling together, we could each check 2 bags of the allowable weight - but not one bag that is 2 lbs. over without incurring a charge. A money-maker for the airlines for sure. I also bought him 3 Brooks Brothers no-iron cotton dress shirts that he will use only for travelling. It was like a revolving door at BB - Canadians and Europeans all buying the same 3 shirt deal - in the same white and pale blue shades. I am careful - my plastic bag was held up as an example to all at Heathrow as to how to back a plastic bag - but I still seem to always end up as the random person to be checked.

Vee, until I went to live in England, I had never heard of, much less eaten, most of the fish you listed, with the exception of cod. Iowa is about as far from any sea as one could get in North America, so when Iowans had fresh fish when I was a kid it was freshwater kinds caught in local lakes and rivers. Otherwise, we had to depend on either canned fish/seafood or frozen kinds, such as cod. My Norwegian great-grandmother carried on the tradition of preparing lutefisk from dried cod (or some other whitefish). It was soaked for days in several changes of water to remove the salt, and then soaked in a lye solution for a couple of days, and finally soaked again in water to remove the lye. Only then was it cooked, either steamed or fried. Most of her descendants were less enamored with lutefisk than she was (it stank to high heaven and had a gelatinous texture that most disliked). Still, we ate it, mostly not to hurt her feelings and secondly just to carry on the tradition. I've had lutefisk prepared by other cooks, including Norwegians on a seismic vessel in the Chukchi Sea, that tasted better than great-grandmother's, so perhaps she wasn't very good at making lutefisk, which is not surprising because she wasn't known for good cooking of any sort. Fridays were 'fish days' in our school cafeteria, too; I guess in respect of Catholic students. You will probably laugh at what we were served: frozen breaded fish sticks, served with ketchup or tartar sauce and, for some reason, macaroni and cheese; tuna-noodle casserole with crushed potato chips (crisps) as topping; tuna salad sandwiches or pimiento cheese as alternative for those who couldn't stomach the tuna; and 'fishburgers', breaded fillets on hamburger buns, dressed with lettuce, mayonnaise and sweet gherkin relish. Garrison Keillor in his Prairie Home Companion radio show poked fun at the ubiquity of tuna-noodle casserole in the American Midwest. A 'fish dinner' that my family particularly liked was our mother's fried salmon patties or croquettes, always served with 'English peas' and potato chunks creamed together in one of those white sauces you referred to. I recall mama's white roux being very tasty but I know what you mean about the insipid ones and all those overcooked vegetables (not mama's). Another thing about the canned salmon that mama used to make her patties: My brothers and I thought it was disgusting because it was canned with the skin and bones included. Mama had us pick out those things. One day my brother decided to taste a bone and talked me into trying one, too. From that day we were dedicated salmon pickers and bone eaters, because the canning process had rendered the bones soft enough to chew with a very pleasant crunchiness. I'm sure other people have known this for a long time, but it was a revelation to us. Since adulthood I have loved fish and seafood of all sorts.