Day 1--Flight By Night



This being my first time flying out of the country, I must dwell on the fascination of international travel. I suppose if I travelled more this wouldn't be so interesting, but that can't be helped. The limits of my international travel are car rides in Canada...which hardly counts (and I in no way mean to offend any Canadians by saying that).



Once I passed the security check point into the international terminal of my airport, I already felt as if I'd left the country. I exchanged my American dollars for Euros (at a pretty crappy exchange rate, I might add) and waited at the gate to board my plane. I guess I felt out of the U.S. already because of the money and the fact that no one else at the gate seemed to speak English. I mean, they made annoucements about the flight in English but with such heavy French accents (I travelled on Air France Airlines), I could barely understand a word.



The plane was probably not even half full, which was actually good news being that I planned to try and sleep on the plane, which is hard enough when you are packed into the economy section like a sardine in a can. I chose an aisle seat so that I wouldn't have to bother anyone when I needed to get up and go to the bathroom and I only shared my row with one person, the seat between us being empty.



I must say: Air travel internationally kicks over domestic air travel...seriously! First, even in the economy section the seats aren't nearly as close together at on domestic flights and the seats lean back further. Plus, there was a foot rest, a serious God-send for such a long flight. Every seat had it's own television so I didn't have to crane my neck to see, if only there had been any decent movies to watch, it was all a bunch of crap as far as I could tell. However, they did provide the ear phones free of charge along with breath mints, ear plugs, a wet wipe, and a face mask for sleeping with the block out the light. Every seat had a pillow and blanket so there was no need to fight over the few that are usually available on domestic flights. Nice.



The food was actually good, which was suprising for an airplane, plus they gave us a lot. After the meal they turned off the cabin lights so that anyone who wanted to sleep could attempt it. This proved harder then I was hoping, but the face mask they provided really helped, as it blocked out the light from all the TVs.



About halfway throught flight I woke suddenly and could not go to sleep futher so I pulled out a book I had brought to pass the time. After an hour or two of reading I felt sleepy again and tried to sleep some more. The man next to me was listening to some music with his headphones, apparently having trouble sleeping as well. I laid back and just tried to relax, when suddenly the guy next to me broke out into song.

"I just called to say I love you..." he sang, with a heavy French accent. I can't tell you how hard it was not to laugh out loud, but I resisted the urge. And while it was really funny, it did make it rather hard to sleep. Occationally over the next hour he would burst into song again, but this time it was always in some other language. I'm not even sure he knew he was doing it.



Finally the sun came up again and we were nearly arrived in Paris.