FEBRUARY 26, 2003
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MARCH 6, 2003
Laurie and I were up early doing last minute packing. How do we pack for a year? Luckily I never cared about being in style. Only one pair of pants which convert to shorts, one pair of shorts, a short sleeve shirt, and a long sleeve shirt. I do have fleece pants and long underwear tops and bottoms and they will have to improvise as regular cloths at times. For dress we have a sarong that hopefully we can wear as a dress, skirt, or shawl. There will be some places that women have to have their legs, arms, and head covered.
Laurie's friend, Susan, brought us to Logan Airport. I was able to see what the Massachusetts taxpayers spent all their money on--The Big Dig. I don't know what the driving was like previously, but Susan said it is so much easier.
We got our bags checked and then had a farewell drink. I don't know why, but this still has not hit me that I will be gone for a year.
Our first snafu was getting our flight from Boston to New York. There was an hour delay which turned out to be an hour and 45 minute delay. This was making us kind of nervous because we had to catch a plane in New York to Hong Kong. The terminal we had to get to was like miles away. There were other people on our plane that also had to catch the same flight. Like they say "safety in numbers". We felt if there were enough people that needed to make the flight they would hold the plane for us.
The plane we were on was just a shuttle plane, so it didn't have a lot of people to unboard. When we got off the plane we took a shuttle bus to a terminal. The airline clerk led us quickly through the meandering people to the outside and put us in a taxi to get to the other terminal.
As I said, it was miles away. At one point Laurie was wondering if we could have walked there. Thankfully we just went along. This reminds me of a time my sister and I walked from one terminal to the next and it was a lot longer than the picture in the book.
They held our plane and we found our seats. They were not together, but the stewardess found us seats together after we took off.
The plane we have is massive. The first class looks like it has 20 rows with about 80 seats across. The place also had an upstairs, but "coach" people weren't allowed, so I don't know what it was for.
I am not one to spend money, but if I had lots I certainly would like to treat myself to first class seats at least once in my life.
I don't know if all international flights are like what we have here, but it is certainly better than U.S. plane travel. We have TV screens in front of us, with movies, games, music, and TV shows available. The stewardess and steward are all so pleasant. We got menus to pick from. We even got hot washcloths after our meal. Talk about treatment! The first time I ever flew, which was in 1972, we got all that, but times have changed.
The first leg of the flight was to Vancouver 2,442 miles. The plane was not full so people could spread out a little. Laurie had three seats between us. I was not real comfortable sleeping in the seats and I didn't want to take the whole middle seat, so I decided to lay down between the seats in front of us and our seats. Believe it or not it was more comfortable there than in the seats. With me on the floor, Laurie could stretch out in the seats. I know most people would probably have been embarrassed if I did that with them, but I am not always one for keeping up appearances. Anyways, it was dark in there and most of the people were sleeping. Unfortunately, after I was nice and comfy on the floor with my pillow and blanket (they give one to everyone, imagine that) they were ready to land in Vancouver. So my first lesson, if you have a good idea, do it no matter what others think.
We had to wait in Vancouver for about 45 minutes to an hour while they cleaned up the mess for the new people coming aboard. This flight was a full flight. Laurie and I didn't know if we would be able to sit together, but the stewardess was able to make some changes. Now a full flight looks like it could hold about 600 people. After being on this flight you begin to feel like you are in prison. We have only this little space to just sit. As we were going west it was constantly dark. Right now it is 1 pm EST and it is like 1 am. We have the shades down, the lights are out, and people are snoozing away. No wonder people get screwed up traveling. I think we even lost a day because we crossed the international dateline.
Now, I compared this to being in prison, but I think it's worse. At least they get to see daylight. By the time we are down we will have been in the plane 20 hours and we will just be seeing the sun up when we get there.
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