The Flight

After hours of last minute packing aided by several lovely friends I was off. My dad gave me a ride to the airport and I said my last goodbye before leaving the state.

The state, however, wasn't about to let me leave that easy.

First I got lost. I walked the entire length of the airport twice before I figured out where I was supposed to go.

Second, it turned out that my second flight was to be delayed, which was bad. Then I found out the first flight had been overbooked, which was even worse. I had, as it were, no actual seat assigned to me. Then the lady at the counter told me that if I agreed to give up my seat and take a faster flight to San Francisco, they'd give me a free $550 voucher - twice the value of my current tickets - for the inconvenience.

US Airways may suck, but they do it in a good way.

The first flight was fine, but the second one was really long. It had cool Star-Trek lights and buttons, though, which entertained me for the first 5 minutes of the 6 hour flight. There were a bunch of Army Airborne guys in full regalia sitting ahead in first class. I heard a lot of jokes about grenades and stuff. If anyone else had been talking like that on a plane they'd have been tackled by an air marshal, the plane would have been diverted, a brigade of cops would have met them on the ground, and the next day they would have banned traveling with grenade jokes, dictionaries without 'grenade' crossed off, and anyone with the last name Grenda. Republicans would blame the Democrats for using words that were covertly pro-grenade, like serenade, or brigade, and would try to start a war with Grenada.

It wasn't all bad, though. The whole flight took place at night, and the view was amazing, especially when the plane banked toward my window. Densely clumped scatterings of lights glittered from otherwise pitch blackness, almost as though there were stars on the ground as well as the sky. Very cool.

It was around ten when I landed. I picked up a shuttle to the cheapest hotel I could find near the airport, checked in, and went straight to sleep.