Airplane Thoughts

I survived my first trans-oceanic plane trip! Well, almost, 30 minutes to go. The 12ish hour plane ride has gone way easier than I anticipated. For the most part. I have to admit, navigating SFO was WAY easier than I anticipated! Shockingly so. I had a little hopper flight from SMF to SFO and in my head was picturing an LAX type scenario of having to go back out, find the right terminal, go back through security blah blah blah. But alas, SFO was well-marked, easy to navigate, just a short-walk between gates, and didn’t even have to go through security again! I shall call that mind f@%^ #1. The ease and pleasure of SFO navigation was balanced out and I was snapped back to reality by a horrible bitchy United gate agent. Every time I fly a non-Southwest airline I continue to be reminded how much I love SW. Anyways, as we lined up to board I was called to the ticket counter and asked if I would switch my seat. Mind you, I paid an extra $250 on this leg of the flight alone to pick an economy plus seat in my preferred location. The lady explained that there was a family with a small child whose seat assignments weren’t right and would I mind switching. As I asked multiple questions to clarify that the new seat would be the same legroom, aisle, etc, the gate agent very bitchily said to me, “Well if you don’t want to cooperate than you can just babysit their 5 year old the entire flight.” Say what?! I kept my cool and said that I was just confirming. I ended up accepting the new seat, directly behind my original seat. I board and get settled and wait to see this family come on board. But alas, who boards, a young couple (early 20s) boasting to each other how glad they are that the story of a child worked so they could get seats changed and sit together. Again, say what?! There will be some carefully worded nasty tweets directed to United later.

I was momentarily angered by being deceived and treated poorly but then realized that in my new row, there was an exceptionally large gentlemen one seat over who was spanning a good seat and a half. Jackpot, I thought, this large gentlemen had to purchase two seats so I’d have half an empty seat next to me. Score! Just as I was getting settled in for the long haul the last scragglers from late connections came scurrying onto the plane. Including one who squeezed in next to me. F%*@! Thankfully he is a nice and narrower gentleman but we have spent over 12 hours with the two of us basically sharing one and a half seats. A few surprises about the plane travel… they served a pretty decent amount of food! Dinner once we got in the air, a little sandwich “snack” mid-flight, and a full breakfast this morning. I’m not saying the quality was great, but I was impressed by the quantity. I was also pleasantly surprised with how much I managed to sleep. I ended up just popping some nyquil and once I got over all the restlessness was able to sleep off and on for about 6 hours. Key lesson learned – next time travel in a sports bra instead of a regular one for sleep comfort!

My second mind f*%@ is the realization that I will never get to experience February 10, 2018. Trippy! But with the time change I left CA the night of the 9th and here I am landing in Auckland the morning of the 11th.

I am well aware that this post may not be particularly interesting, but this whole blog is pretty much meant to be my rambling thoughts, and some will definitely be more or less interesting than others. Gotta start somewhere!

Key lessons learned this flight:

-Compression socks, wear them. Same with easy slip-on travel shoes.

-Awesome purchase = my travel blanket. Larger and thicker than the airplane blanket and you can slip it on poncho style so it doesn’t slip off when sleeping. Loved the damn thing, good investment.

-Stupid purchase – fancy-pants, cross-chest, side-sleep, inflatable neck pillow. Useless, couldn’t get comfortable. Will probably buy a regular one for the ride home, mad I didn’t pack one of my regular ones.

-Paying to “rent” a couple movies to download onto he iPad. Worth it.