10 hour flights are THE BEST!!

I planned for a torturous 10 hour plane ride. I’m really glad that airlines usually overstate the time that we will actually be in the air. Before I knew it, we were already down to 7.5 hours left. But, just checking in took me over an hour. The worst I had seen in a long time. They had no convenient check-in computers like most of the airlines have these days, and it was just taking forever. When I finally got up to the front, I was told my 11.5 kg carryon was too heavy for the airplane, and that only 5 kg would be accepted. WHAT? This is an international flight! Just a laptop computer itself would weigh 5 kg! Even funnier, when I took everything that I possibly could out of my carryon to place in my checked baggage (without taking out the really important stuff) my checked bag weighed over 30 kg, which most airlines usually do have an issue with. But she said nothing. This made no sense to me. I politely but firmly mentioned that I could get the weight down to 8.5 kg, but everything else in that bag absolutely needed to come with me on the flight. She was OK with it. Ironically, I looked out and saw many other people with much larger bags than me. Who knows, maybe it’s because I have a US passport.

This is probably one of the worst international flights I have been on in a while. The seats are absurdly cramped and the entertainment is very limited. The “map” that they offer permanently shows the plane situated near Hamilton, Bermuda. And in many cases, unless I stare at the stewardesses they make no notice of me and skip whatever they are giving out to people, maybe because I am in an aisle seat. I hate aisle seats. I got some food that had almonds in the rice and a nutty-looking dessert. Then I briefly fell asleep and had this very vivid 5 second dream of the plane suddenly taking a dive down and everyone screaming, and then we hit water and I woke up. So much for sleeping the rest of the flight. At least I have some nice people around me and the bathrooms aren’t too bad. I guess just about anything isn’t going to seem that great after my business class flight from France. But, at least somehow the time has disappeared and there is only an hour until we land, and I am caught up on work which is always a great feeling.