Life, Travel

Flying, Honestly

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So here I am on my flight to London. I think we’ve been in the air for about six hours. We’ve got about 3 hours left and I just cannot get to sleep. It’s definitely not for lack of trying. I even had two reasonably sized bottles of wine in hopes I’d just conk out. No luck. This means my 24 hour layover is going to REALLY suck because at this point I’ve been awake nearly 20 hours already. Damn.

It feels just like Tech. I bet my blood will start to feel like acid at hour 30. I’ll keep you guys updated. [sucks to be you] :)

So now you get to hear the first part of the story of my first solo flight over the Atlantic. [applause]

J took me to the airport and helped me with my three enormous bags and my carry on. When you pack for India, you pack for India. As in, maybe 15% of what’s in the suitcases is for you and the rest is other stuff. I had shoved some other stuff in there so at bag check, I barely made it under the 22kg limit.

While I was getting my bags checked through, there was an angry, short, half bald indian guy at the next counter acting like a total ass. He had a family of four and he expected to be seated with all four seats in the same row, next to each other. Well, any idiot can tell you that showing up this late to the party without reserving your seats is a gamble. He stomped about, called the British Airways attendant uncooperative, unprofessional, unable to do even the simplest of tasks as he slammed down the tickets he didn’t want. He went on and on like a small angry baboon with it’s butt all aflare demanding all sorts of pretty impossible nonsense while telling all her coworkers around her she needed to be fired. Dude all I thought to myself is that he should be fired from my race! What a turd. What I found pretty typical was his clearly meek wife standing by letting him have his unbelievably childish tirade while his two teenage kids looked both embarrassed and partially deadened to the situation. This probably wasn’t new behaviour. He made me mad by just existing 10 feet from me.

I managed to get my boarding pass and head on to the Atrium where I cooled off by listening to this amazing duo that had come in to play. They were a husband wife team of musicians called Montana Skies and they. were. amazing. The husband played his guitar which he could play either acoustically or electronically and his wife played both a real cello and a really awesome looking shoulder mounted electric one. I wish I had snagged more pictures but I’m kind of paranoid about taking out my big DSLR at the airport. I got a couple phone pics, though.

My friend Sana was landing at the same time from another flight so she came from her terminal to come see J & I. It was nice to get to spend about a half hour with her before I had to head to security. I had a sad goodbye with J, and I keep telling myself it’s just two weeks, and then of course I got to hang out with TSA. I never get to go through without getting patted down. If you can call it patting. God. The TSA agent tells you.. hey I’m gonna feel under your boobs, and then’ BAM you are getting felt up officially which makes it okay. I’m pretty easygoing so I don’t care. I stick my arms up and offer my ladies freely but I can see how this can be offensive to other people, especially with how blatantly racist the whole procedure is. It didn’t take too long.I would have at least liked dinner first but this is America, people. ;)

I got on the plane at around 9:20 our time and have been flying ever since.

So far only one baby has started crying angrily and for that I am thankful. I always wonder who those crazy people are that bring babies on 10 hour international flights. I also wonder who those sane people are that don’t grab the kid and toss him out the plane after he won’t shut up. It is soooo frustrating for all those people that don’t have the magic mommy and daddy ability to be fine with their screamer. I’m convinced it’s biological and definitely not shared.

It’s really not fair to all those passengers who pay thousands of dollars for their tickets only to have your stupid screaming baby make their lives miserable. It’s all a part of flying I guess. Or life. If you’re going to pay 2.5G’s to get an airline ticket, your dumb butt can buy some headphones. Sucks to be forced to buy expensive noise cancellers just so you can take a flight. Oh well. I feel bad for people who can’t just pop on their headphones and ramp up some Pitbull and rap in the babys face. Babies love you rapping in their face.

Pitbull is my solution to everything.

I am not sure anymore if I am talking or the wine is talking or the sleep deprivation is talking.
You know what’s cool. We’re a thousand miles out from Heathrow right now and we’re going to get there in UNDER TWO HOURS. I wish we could time travel and bring a pilgrim back and then blow his mind.

I miss Ami and Vargas and Sushi.

OMG British Airways has the best food. They asked if I wanted chicken curry. HECK YEAH MUTHATRUCKA I WANT SOME CURRY. And it was delicious.
And I watched the last third of The Help while eating and drinking another wine bottle. At the end I started to cry and the curry was still delicious. I don’t think wine and sad but also happy movies mix because I don’t cry at movies. Except this one.

Like tears streaming endlessly. Thank god the people on either side of me are sleeping like the dead.

My laptop is burning my leg.

I keep opening Google Chrome like I have internet.

I really want to get off this plane now.

I can’t feel my ass.

‘.and there goes baby #2.

————–

I landed in Heathrow at 9:45am this time amidst screaming babies and a fantastic view of London that I couldn’t photograph because I was so dead tired. I did wind up striking a conversation with the british guy next to me for a solid hour after he’d quit sleeping and droolin’ all over himself. That’s pretty much all the actual human contact I’ve had after leaving J at the airport.

:( J.

 

So, after I landed they wouldn’t let me into Terminal 5 because my boarding pass is for tomorrow. THEN where the heck do I go’ So I start wandering around this enormous-ass airport. I get advised to take the bus to Terminal 1. I somehow manage to find this bus and wind up being the only passenger in a bus driven by an insane smoking british man. Apparently half the Heathrow airport is under construction and this fact makes the road to getting there this driver’s personal go cart track. I wanted to hurl the entire 20 minutes it took to wind around everything and anything to get to terminal 1.

At this point I go through security again.

From the time I’ve arrived, I’ve gone through security three times, four different people have told me that yes I can go to the shops, and no I can’t go to the shops, but here I am at the shops. A couple of them told me to go to immigration but at the rate of misinformation here I’m going to wind up an illegal immigrant in the United Kingdom so I’ll just stay right here in this terminal, thank you very much.

Breakfast at Terminal 1 cost 20 dollars. Dude the exchange rate here sucks so much.
I just bought a bottle of water for four dollars. FOUR DOLLARS.

Paz is texting me stuff. I’m glad for that.

My eyes are getting watery from sleepiness. I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake. I have the perfect sleeping position.

Unsurprisingly my arse has not ceased hurting.

I’m trying to laugh at all this.
EL OH EL,PEOPLE

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4 Comments

  • Reply Meghan December 17, 2011 at 12:38 pm

    Last night, on the way to a Christmas party, I read your comment about Christmas traditions to Tom. We were both cracking up. I had to read it to him because he knows you, and we both think you are absolutely hilarious sometimes. =) This post just proved that point even more. Good luck getting some sleep!

    • Reply Sunira December 17, 2011 at 4:52 pm

      I require record of all spoken performances of my work! Lol jk jk glad you guys enjoy all my crazy. :) I still haven’t slept. It’s really hard to when you don’t have anyone to watch your bags. I’m going to come close to my Tech record with this trip. :) I feel fine though, albeit a bit off balance emotionally probably. Let’s see what happens to the next person that gets a go at my chest.

  • Reply Jina December 21, 2011 at 8:44 am

    Excuse me. I asked your permission about your brush, and you erased my reply and ignored me? Seriously, what’s your problem? If you don’t like that kind of reply, you should put some ways for personal contact on homepage. YOU MENTIONED PERMISSION so I came to your homepage to ask AS YOU SAID, and…so what? I don’t know what is going on with you, but you need to respect others and have responsibility for your words. If you don’t like this kind of contact at the first place, DON’T SAY ‘ask the owner for permission first’. Don’t worry. I don’t need your PRETTY brush anymore. I’m so sure that you’ll erase this one too. I don’t care. Do it your way. So long. :)

    • Reply Sunira January 4, 2012 at 12:43 pm

      I have no idea what is going on. Maybe my spam filter got you with the weird e-mail format you’re using to get past the system? If it was deleted, it was certainly a mistake. I am sorry you are so upset, but it would be nice if you did not also jump to conclusions and accuse me of all these things. :)

      I have not read your previous comment as it’s no longer in the system. I usually have no problem granting permission to use my resources for any reasonable requests. Feel free to ask for any of my resources for use in the future.

      Also, without the e-mail address, I cannot notify you of replies on this post. That is all I use the e-mail for.

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