6/29 & 6/30 - EWK -> LHR -> BKK -> CNX

My combination Monday/Tuesday was long, but happily uneventful for the most part.

After a night of packing, cleaning and crying, and no sleeping, we left the house at 5am to head to Newark.  We got to the airport around 6, checked in, got my right side window seat just like I like, at when that was all finished, around 6:20, I ate some breakfast.  Easy! Security was a breeze and I had some time to sit at the gate.

When I was going through the gate the guy who had taken the big part of the boarding pass told me to go talk to a man standing just inside the jetway, I'll call Second Guy. Second Guy looked at my boarding pass and passport for no longer than 3 seconds and then told me I could go. Then First Guy said, "Stop. Your boarding pass didn't go through. Wait there." So I stood next to Second Guy for about 10 minutes, watching everyone else got on the plane. Then a girl came out of nowhere, looked at my carry-on luggage (totally normal carry-on luggage sized), picked it up and said, "Um, this isn't going to fit. How many bags did you check. Can you check it?" I said, "What? It'll fit. Do I have to check it?" She said, "I don't think it's going to fit. You should check it." I quickly had a vision of that guy on the plane who is desperarely trying to get his bag that doesn't fit, to fit.  It's sad to watch.  I was a little nervous, but decided to stay strong even though I had no actual experience with this particular piece of luggage.  I said, "You know what? Everytime I go through Heathrow, my luggage gets lost and I would really prefer to keep this with me." This was a lie.  I don't know if I've even flown through Heathrow and I've never lost my luggage at any airport.  But thanks to all the stories that I had heard people tell me I decided lying was ok. 

"I don't think it's going to fit. But I guess you can see what the flight attendants say. You can go." I said thanks and walked toward the plane but then realized the guy had said there was something wrong with my boarding pass.  So then I wondered if "your boarding pass didn't go through" was really code for "that luggage is too big" or if the girl misinterpreted my standing there and if there was actually a problem with the boarding pass. Oh well. Whatever. My luggage was fine and fit perfectly in the overhead compartment on my first try.  

I sat next to a um, larger girl, who used 125% of the middle arm rest, but I was okay with it. I slept for most of the 7 hour flight to London but woke up in time to eat food and watch 1 hour and 40 minutes of Gran Torino before they shut off the inflight entertainment, which was a shame because the whole film is about 1 hour and 55 minutes. The connection to my Qantas flight was a pain. I took a bus from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 but after telling the guy my flight was at 10 (mistake, again, should have lied) the guy refused to leave and kept coming on to the bus, pretending to sit down and then just grabbing a water bottle or something, just to taunt me I decided. I didn't have a boarding pass or a confirmed seat so as I was sitting on the shuttle bus I just kept envisioning all of the right side window seats being allocated to people who didn't even care. It was hard. Eventually after smiley blond hair Australian guy wearing pants that were waaaay too tight, my bus driver friend pulled off and the three of us had a very interesting 10 minute bus ride through London Heathrow. Once I got to Terminal 4 I figured it would be smooth sailing from there, but au contraire... The security line was reeeaaaaaly long, which I thought would be avoided because the shuttle bus was only for people coming from other flights. I was so scared about not getting a seat or missing the flight that I even forgot to grab my poor little hat which wasn't strong enough to make it out of the x-ray machine all by itself. Luckily, my shuttle-mate got it and brought it over to me. Thanks Australian guy! 

Then the line for the airline to get the boarding pass. Ugh. Really long again.  There was a hippie family behind me speaking French.  Usually I wouldn't try to talk to a French family, but they were hippies so I felt like they would have to be nice.  I was 1/2 right.  They were nice and happy to talk to me in slow French, but they were Belgian who I've been told speak much slower than French people anyway.   When I finally got to the counter I was freaking out but trying to play it cool.  She took my passport and then said, "Here, bring this upstairs and they'll give you a seat upstairs." What???? It was a standby ticket!! My flight was at 10, I figured boarding started around 9:30 and it was about 9:25 already and I didn't have a seat. I knew my dreams of the right side window were long gone, so I started secretly hoping the flight would be so full they'd have to upgrade me to first class. You know they have to do that, right? 

That didn't happen. I got 40B. This is was the first B (middle) seat I can remember in a long long time. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I sat in a B (or it's middle seat letter friends in the center or on the right side) seat. As you probably know, I'm a 'online check in 24 hours in advance' kind of girl. Well, not this time. 40B was handed over to me at about 9:45pm.

Turns out 40B was not bad. It was right behind a wall so there was nobody in front of me to lean his or her chair back. But, possibly due to the lady behind me who kept kicking my seat, for the entire 11 hour flight, I couldn't fall asleep. I tried. Especially when they turned all the lights off and the entire plane was pitch black and silent (pretty impressive for a gigantic plane with hundreds of people). But no. I walked around the plane and sure enough at least 90% of the plane was sleeping. Or maybe just pretending to sleep, but doing a good job of it. I, along with my 10%, weren't that lucky. I know my seat was really far back (which is fair, the other people in the row had their seats back too) and I knew the lady was doing her best to comfortable in the tiny cramped area, so I felt bad saying something to her.  And I also knew if I asked her to stop moving around so much she might ask me to move my seat up.  Hmm... Usually I'm a good sleeper so I wasn't even sure if she was the reason I was having so little success.

Needless to say, crappy romantic comedies kept me company during the flight. Oh, and you know how I said I missed the last 15 minutes or so of Gran Torino? I got to see the last 15 minutes, which were really important, so I'm glad that Virgin and Qantas both agreed it was a film was worth showing. Qantas was nice. The accents were cute. (I bet they hate when people say that. Oh well.) I watched some Australian sitcoms and listened to lots of Australian music. No Cat Empire, but they did have Silverchair, Men at Work, Midnight Oil and a surprising number of songs I knew from 2003, the year I lived in Sydney. After the 11 hour flight I landed in Bangkok. Ahh, Bangkok. 

I have a tourist visa which entitles me to a stamp good for 60 days. There are a bunch of numbers on the visa and since I didn't know which was the exact visa number I thought I'd pass her my passport opened to the full-page, color visa for Thailand with my arrival card. She didn't notice. She stamped 30 days. I thought this might happen so I checked, saw the 30 days and went back. I got yelled at for not writing the visa number on the arrival card, but got it changed to 60 days.

I sat at the luggage carousel replaying all of the Heathrow lost luggage stories I heard from Mom, Dad and Erica and trying to stay cool. I did, after all, fight to keep my carry-on, so I was prepared. But alas, it showed up. Right as the "Last Bag" sign went on. Phew! I lugged my stuff up to the departures lobby and got my seat for my Thai Airways flight to Chiang Mai. 42C.  Aisle.  Ok.  I'll take it.  I made some phone calls, checked some email, ate some gai tot and kao nieow (it's just fried chicken and sticky rice, but qualifies as a meal here!), bought a SIM card, eavesdropped on a French family with a little kid and listened to a Thai university student who was just randomly practicing guitar on a bench. Nice!

I slept for most of the flight except when I woke up and jumped forward to catch the lady handing food out before she passed.  Close one!  When I got to Chiang Mai it was raining.  Like a lot.  I forgot how annoying the raining season can be.  But it's been raining a lot in New York too, so I guess I can't be too upset.  

From my parent's house Monday morning to my guesthouse in Chiang Mai Tuesday night, it was about 29 hours of travel/travel-related stuff. Needless to say, by the time I got to my bed, I was pretty much out.  I fell asleep listening to a French film.  French is pretty. Thai movies are a little too painful on the ears for night time.