Flight 32

With a whole row of three seats to myself, I plopped down in my chair, out of everyone's way, sweating with nervousness, excitement, and exhaustion. I was still in shock that I even got on the plane, let alone with 1 minute to spare. As my racing heart slowed down, a nice flight attendant lady came over and asked me if Id be willing to move a few rows up so that a separated family could sit together; I was more than happy to oblige. I still had an empty seat next to me and an aisle so I was a-okay.

The flight was almost 10  hours straight from Seattle to Paris. I flew out at 1pm Seattle time and arrived at 8:30am Paris time. An entire night is merely erased from my life, its crazy! I certainly wanted that night back as soon as I touched down and my excitement began wearing off. The flight course took me over the entire length of Canada, across the southern tip of Greenland, over Ireland, the UK, and then into the heart of France. Can I count those places on my traveling map? :)

In between my movie-watching and pathetic attempts at sleeping, I decided to write down some random notes that I didn't want to forget:

1) Billy Joel got me over the Atlantic Ocean. I had to convince myself we wouldn't end up marooned on a raft every 2 minutes
2) I sat with a lot of time to flesh out my emotions. I think I decided that I was finally a little bit of nervous and a whole lot of anxious. It was the strangest thing to realize that my life was suddenly taking on a form of semi-permanence and so I better like it! I had nothing to draw from that would even relate to this new adventure so finally, I simply closed my eyes and just let life come at me.
3) Prayers really, really do work
4) The temperature inside the plane had me feeling like I had popsicles for legs. For 10 hours!
5) The old man on the other side of my row was actually using a walkman. My childhood suddenly flooded back to me.
6) Witnessing my first European sunrise was incredible. The colors were so bright and so deep, I was really wishing I had a window seat by then. Imagine a blood orange skyline that extended into every color of the rainbow before dissolving into heaven. INCREDIBLE. And, of course, no picture to share. Curse you, middle seats!
7) The food was surprisingly good. Good job, Sky Chef!