Arrival

I love flying. I really do. But the flight over to London was probably the worst international flight I've ever been on.

I flew Continental which I usually always do and have no problem. The flight from Austin to Houston was no problem. The flight from Houston to London-Heathrow was another question. First, the flight was delayed. Not like 10 minutes delayed, more like 45 minutes. We sat on the runway for 45 minutes because of some technical issue. At this point images from Tom Hanks movie Castaway start going through my head.

Oh and I had an aisle seat which is fine, better than the middle if you're traveling alone. But the man sitting next to me was from Nigeria and...he smelled like a shower was a foreign idea to him. I'm pretty tolerable of lots of stuff, but smell is not one of them. There was no way that I was going to make it 10 hours on an overnight transatlantic flight sitting next to smelly man. No way.
After about 20 minutes of sitting next to him I started to get nauseous. I tend to have a strong stomach and rarely get stomach viruses, but the smell was pretty bad. I had to do something. Normally, I wouldn't complain to a stewardess, I'm sure their job is stressful. But this was making me sick. I go and find the very nice male steward and tell him my situation. He politely says that theirs really nothing he can do because the entire flight is packed. Except for one seat in the middle in the back. He points to the seat and it's in the middle of two very large men. My options are pretty slim....but decide the aisle seat is a better idea. So I go back and sit down in my seat and not so casually pull out my lotion and put some on to mask the smell around me.

Finally, FINALLY we take off. 45 minutes late. Which was to put us in London....you guessed it 45 minutes late. I had plans to meet my friend for lunch around his office and get the keys to his flat...so I'm not liking this lateness too much. BUT there's nothing I can do, so I let it go because, hey I'm flying to London. So I get out of my crabby mood and start flipping through the entertainment guide for the plane. I see that 27 Dresses is playing, which I really liked. So I start fidgeting with the remote and pressing the buttons and nothing. Absolutely nothing. My screen is black. All the other screens around me are working properly...why not mine? I brought books and stuff for the plain, but I was plain exhausted from days of little or no sleep. All I wanted was to not think and watch a movie.

So I find another steward and tell him my situation. He gives me the standard "I'm sorry, but we can't fix that mid-air. The only other available seat is the middle seat in the back." I return to my seat a little dejected and pretty miffed. But it's whatever, reading is better for you anyway.

After dinner, which wasn't bad for airplane food, I try and get comfortable in my seat. I hardly sleep in my own bed, let alone an airplane seat. About 20 minutes after I fell asleep we hit turbulence. Like major turbulence, so much so I got scared. For the next 3 or so hours the turbulence would taper off and then come on strong. I was bouncing around like a bobble toy. The pilot kept trying to go around it but we'd get stuck in it again. Needless to say I didn't sleep.

Thankfully we arrived safely in London. Yay London!

More to come on my first day and weekend in London.