The Traveling

This was my first stop in Seattle.

Ok... These are the main impressions I got from traveling...

1). Airports are SUPER clean.

2). Airports are filled with quiet sad people.

3). Flying is scary.

Flying is still fun, but yes... much scarier than I remembered. Mostly because the planes seem so rickety. Plus when I first flew on a plane a hundred years ago I hadn't seen so many movies with exploding plane engines and breaking off wings etc. Very cool though. I think I found the roller coaster ups and downs to be more enjoyable than my traveling companions did...

Next came the wait...

wait...

wait in Seattle...

filled with cards...

and starbursts...

I will introduce my traveling companions now while I wait for the plane to London...

The one on the right is Tivoli and the one on the left is Liesl. Tallis was the one at the top in the bathroom. We were all playing Pinochle in this picture next to the Brittish Airlines boarding spot. Which was cool since there were brittish accents constantly in the background. Tivoli and I won the card game.

Then the four hours were almost up...

A quick stop before boarding...

Boarding...

On a really big plane this time...

All four of us in a row...

And what do you know... movies... a whole big old selection of movies for our entertainment.

Take off...

"How to train your Dragon" punctuated by a dinner of orange and noodles (the orange was salmon). This is actually where I discovered that while I am not at home I will eat everything no matter what it is and enjoy it. Who'd uv thunk it. We're losing an hour for every hour we travel so it is dark by now (around ten thirty). Tallis and I watch "Wolfman" which had a lot of potential and no redeeming qualities. The movie gets over and I am annoyed by the light going on and off above me. By now almost everyone on the plane is sleeping or restlessly moving about. I figure out that I have my elbow on the light button on my armrest and move it. The light above me stops turning on and off. I take my contacts out in the airplane bathroom. Sit back down and fall asleep.

Then I wake up in two and a half hours. Three o'clock in the morning. Bright day outside. Breakfast is served soon after. Some sort of cheese tortilla wrap thing. England is covered in clouds so I don't see Europe until we touch down in London. I tried hard to see any famous land marks in the distance, but nothing showed itself (I did see a castle as we were flying away, but it didn't look very famous).

And now we are racing racing for the next flight. All metal is off our bodies already in preparation for customs. We are twenty minutes late already since out plane was delayed by heavy airport traffic. Hallways, escalators, rooms, escalators, underground trams, escalators, hallways, lines, lines, lines. We hopped some barriers to the front of a line. Went under some other barriers to skip a line. Found a Swiss family as late as we were and sprinted after them, through customs, across the airport and to our flight in plenty of time after all.

I sat by myself at a window seat for this flight. The Indian girl next to me didn't seem interested in talking (not that I actually heard her speak any English) and she slept most of the ride. After the plane drove around the airport for half an hour we took off on our way to Zurich (this is the point where I saw my castle). Up out of the mess of airport runways and dry grass (my only impression of England) through a layer of clouds, and then another layer of clouds, and then finally one last layer of clouds a million miles above everything. Some unattractive Stewardesses came along about then offering everyone crisps and biscuits. I watched as we crossed a body of water that I am assuming was the English channel and approached the coast line of the continent of Europe. France, France, France. I was flying over France. How cool is that. The plane eventually heaved and we were descending towards Zurich. I could see lots of large green hills and rivers. I saw a nuclear power plant and was reminded of the Simpsons. Another successful landing. My backpack was one of the first out on the conveyer belt. A quick walk and there was Skyler waiting with a van to pick us up.