Europe Day 16 – Heading home

I thought this would be an uneventful day with nothing to write about. All we had to do was get on the subway, catch our plane, relax for 12 hours, and get home. It turned out to be a miserable day. We made it to the subway station and had to wait about 15 minutes for the next train, since it was Sunday. The train came, went 4 stops, and then they told everyone to get off the train. I wasn’t listening, so I’m not sure why. After 5 minutes, the next train came and we were back in business.

We reached the station where we needed to switch to another train to go to the airport, so we grabbed our luggage and made our way to another part of the station. Just as we reached the top of the escalator, our train pulled away. Damn. The next train was in 15 minutes. It finally came after 20 minutes and it was a longer ride than either of us first anticipates. We still got to the airport 90 minutes before our flight, so we felt okay. It took us 30 minutes to check our bags and get our tickets. Next we went through security. Okay nothing new here. They did have me open one of my bags, because I had a radio shaped like a beer bottle. They ran it through the machine again and we were on our way.

Next we went through European Union customs. I’m still not sure why we had to go through customs before leaving. I was planning on doing some shopping in the airport. We had 75 Euros ($100.00) left and I still hadn’t found anything for my dad. As we walked away from customs and into the shopping area and announcement was made suggesting anyone traveling to the United States report to their gate immediately. As we approached the gates we had to show our passport and boarding pass again, then go through American security, which was the exact same scrutiny as the European Security. Okay… I had to open my bag again for the radio and they ran it through again. But by time we were done with all of this we only had 10 minutes before they boarded our flight.

I asked to be moved to an exit row, but to no avail. The flight was completely full. Vanessa and I made our way down the aisle of the plane and suddenly I realized what a crappy flight this was going to be. The seats were crammed into the plane. As I took my seat my knees pressed into the back of the seat in front of me and my hips were touching the armrests. The old lady next to Vanessa smelled. The plane took off about 15 minutes late, but at least we were on our way. Once we were up to cruising altitude we broke out the laptop to watch our last movie - Napoleon Dynamite. The guy in front of me leaned his seat back all of the way and his chair was about 3 inches from my face. I had no choice, but to lean my seat back as well. It still didn’t help much. It was uncomfortable. Towards the end of Napoleon Dynamite the lady in front of Vanessa leaned her seat back, which pushed the laptop screen down, and suddenly we couldn’t see the movie anymore. We readjusted and managed to watch the last 10 minutes of the movie in awkward fashion. We were only 2 hours into our 13-hour flight.

The people in front of us only put their seat up when instructed to do so by the stewardess (when meals were served). Even when he got up to walk around or go to the bathroom he left his seat reclined. I was erasing something on a piece of paper using a pencil and the guy leaned his chair back so fast my pencil imbedded in the seat and was stuck in the seat and my tray. Everyone around us was coughing without covering their mouth, the guy next to me (across the aisle) kept hacking luggies into a Kleenex, and the kids behind us were crying. Another thing: There weren’t any air vents for us to blow air on our face to cool down or get some of the germs away from us. MISERABLE.

We were anxious to see the second movie Shark Tale. As the movie started we put on our headset… nothing. No sound. The stewardesses were told and they called for a guy to come back and fix the problem. After a couple of minutes, we had no power in our armrest, so we couldn’t even turn our lights on or off. This went on for 30 minutes, no sound, no power, power, no sound. Finally they restarted the movie. Great! Still no sound. About 45 minutes into the movie we finally got sound back. We started listening to the movie. After about 30 minutes of watching the movie, they turned it off. They tried to make it up to us by showing Jackie Chan in Around the World in 80 Days, but I wasn’t pleased.

After 13 hours of this I couldn’t take anymore. I am promising myself I will never fly over 5 hours in economy again! Luckily our plane landed in LAX right then. After gathering our luggage and going through customs (45 minutes) we were in Los Angeles! My dad was there to pick us up and it was nice to see him. Los Angeles greeted us with nasty rain and humid weather. We were so used to the 40-degree weather that 60 was uncomfortable. It took a long time to get out of the airport, because the 105 freeway was shutdown at Sepulveda due to flooding. That’s always nice to come back to.

It was nice to finally be home. Despite having party while we were gone, Albert and Keith left our place very clean. We went through piles of mail and Mr. Pickles (the cat) was very pleased to see us. I could tell by the way he stretched and yawned. I went to bed about 7:30 pm after being up for 22 hours and slept until 4:30 am. It felt great.