blog during flight to philly

I’m currently en route to Philly from RDU…on my net book, of course. I can’t remember how long the flight is going to take and I have no idea what altitude we are currently at…my guess is around 30,000 ft. give or take 3,000 ft. So since I’m currently at tens of thousands of feet in the air, this blog won’t get posted until I have internet access again, either at the airport in Philly or when I arrive in Paris at Charles de Gaulle. The send off at the airport terminal before security was very sad. Lots of tears on everyone’s part, but most especially mine. My mom dropped Carlene, Caitlin and me off at the terminal for me to check in with my luggage and then park the cars (my sister and Melissa). Between the time they dropped us off and came back to the terminal to say “bon voyage,” I almost started freaking out. Okay, scratch that. I DID freak out. I wasn’t even crying that hard and my nose was starting to tingle and go numb. (That’s the number 1 sign that a panic attack is coming.) I took a pill because I knew I had to make it through more sanely.

Caitlin and her beautiful self was, of course, very supportive and started using her counselor voice crap. She asked me if I wanted to talk about what I was thinking and I said no because I knew I’d start crying and wouldn’t be able to stop. She then just switched to asking what the most prominent emotion that I was feeling was at that moment. I bit my lip, and while trying not to cry even more, I said, “Sheer terror. Nothing but terror.” I knew that having such an entourage to send me off at the airport would upset me a lot. It was very sweet, but it made it a little harder to leave some of the most important people in my life for 4 months. Of course I hugged my sister, then my mom, then Melissa, then Joe, then Carlene, and then Caitlin. There were pretty much tears with everyone.

They followed me and waved until I had to go upstairs to airport security; meanwhile, I was fighting back tears and terror. I went through security, but it took awhile. I had so much stuff I had to send through separate and stuff. Then while scanning my carry-on, they called someone over for baggage check. I was like, “Um…what? I don’t’ have anything bad or illegal!!!” but after doing extra security (as in go through my carry-on quite thoroughly), I discovered the heart of the matter. Right before inspecting my bag more thoroughly, they asked me if I had any items on board that I could poke or hurt someone with. I thought to myself for a second and said, “Nope, I’m pretty sure I don’t…You can look as thorough as you like, though.” She opened my baggage and started looking through. It turns out through the baggage check screen (which is only 2D), they couldn’t tell what my travel tripod was. They just saw something long and somewhat pointed. I’m really glad the lady who checked through my stuff more thoroughly was nice. She explained all this to me so that I would understand there wasn’t anything bad they had found; sometimes they just can’t tell what things are through the machine’s screen. No worries, I made it through quite fine.

Finding the gate wasn’t too bad either: A24. I found a bathroom nearby and by the time I got out of the bathroom, they were boarding the flight to Philly. So I probably had to wait in the gate area for only a few minutes. Lucky me. Ha ha. I can’t really remember what time we left the ground, but we were scheduled to leave at 5:55pm. I know we left on time if not early than scheduled. We’re flying over a pretty big city right now, but I can’t tell what it is. I think it might be Washington, D.C., but I really can’t tell. It looks pretty cool, though. I’ve never flown at night, so I haven’t seen a city lit up at night while in the air. Oops, a little tiny bit of turbulence right there. Nothing major. Kind of like driving over railroad track…so it’s nothing serious. Or not…I have no idea. They just turned back on the “fasten seatbelts” light and the flight attendant announced it. Heck, maybe we’re already nearly to Philly? Doesn’t seem possible. We left before 5:55pm and it’s 6:30pm on the dot right now.

Okay, well I think I’ve nearly written a novel here, so I’m going to do something else, but nothing involving reading. Takes too much concentration and my nerves are too rattled to comprehend anything. Um okay, so we’re 40 miles from Philly and at about 15,000 ft. Will be arriving soon, so I really have to stop typing.