I am not a bad passenger of airlines. I am not concerned by turbulence or the thought that we could at any moment plummet and crash into the sea. Karen however is, and our flights are filled with these concerns and her sometimes panic that we are indeed going down. Obviously I give her all the support she needs, lots of eye contact, an occasional squeeze of the leg and an on-going commentary informing her that everything is OK. However, I am starting to doubt my confidence in flying mainly due to the startling amount of research Karen has done in the field of aeronautical catastrophe. When hit by turbulence or headed for a landing Karen will, between her fear and worry, see it as the perfect moment to bring out some horrible and uncomfortable fact. These have included; "Most crashes happen in the first or last three minutes of a flight!" or "Did you know that Air France plane fell for 3 whole minutes before it hit the water!" I am not sure why these facts have affected me so much, but now, every time we fly they are repeated in my mind, over and over and over. Hopefully I will learn to ignore them or Karen will run out of such facts soon, or both.
P.s. We are in Patagonia, not the desolate wasteland I was expecting, more a kind of South American Aspen. Nice.
