San José, California, USA

"The flight today will be three hours and four fun-filled minutes."

I fell asleep at 12:30am (or thereabouts) and woke up at 4:26am (four minutes before my alarm was set to go off, also known as "before god early"). I was dreaming about arriving in New Zealand. In it dad was dropping me off -- we'd flown down together, and now he was driving me me to my hotel. He kissed me goodbye and I went in. It didn't look as good as the website, of course, and it turned out the price for 3 nights was $400 -- well above what was agreed. The clerk offered to get me acquainted, by which she meant handing me a menu of things happening at the hotel, including acting classes and an amateur production of "Clue" which may or may not have been starring Tim Curry (which wouldn't really make it amateur).



"If Houston wasn't in your travel plans, it is now."

I was seated behind a really... interesting family on the first flight. We have Young Grandma (YG), Young Mom (YM), Granddaughter (G), and Granddad (GD). YG and G showed up first, and G was plied with blankets, toys, and various other kid-er-phernalia. Then YM (I say young because she looked somewhere between 18-22) showed up, and they all sat down. Things were okay until just before the doors closed when YG half stood and started waving a piece of paper at the flight attendants. YM checked on something, then they sat down again. When the doors closed there was a panic -- something about GD, and is he on the plane? And he's in the gate! Can't they just open the door? YM started bawling and YG started praying fiercely. When he did get in, YG cheered.

G thought I was the most hilarious thing ever and spent most of the flight standing on her seat and looking/laughing/sitting down and occasionally handing me things (including drawings, a sticker from a banana, a dirty napkin, and a compass -- the kind you draw circles with)(it wasn't pointy like the compasses of my day). It was really charming for a while, and got really irritating around hour 2.

"We'll be through one more time to pick up any unneeded items: cash, unused credit cards, jewelry..."

Remember when I flew to Scotland on Continental and the food was okay? After taking a chance on what turned out to be the worst chicken nuggets, fries, and diet coke the world has ever experienced (Dear fast food industries: chicken nuggets shouldn't be soft), I was confident about throwing 97% of it away, since, as experience proved, the food on this flight would be halfway decent.

Y'all, how the hungry have fallen! Let's look, shall we?



Iceburg lettuce on the left. Natch. Peppercorn dressing (ick). And on the right? Can you read that?



"Crispy Pizza Crust Topped with Beef Steak, Green Peppers, Ranch Dressing, Mozzarella, Provolone, and Romano Cheese."

First of all, it wasn't crispy, and second, there is no one, anyone, ever, who could make that taste good. I'm pretty sure it was a dare, because I can't imagine anyone, boardroom or no, thought that was a good idea.

All the flights went well, though, and I managed to get my bag AND find the shuttle for the hotel. It was all going well until I opened the door to my hotel room -- okay, actually, I didn't much like the hotel, but whatever whatever -- I opened the door, and the bed was rumpled, there was a coffee mug on the sink, there were towels on the floor, and I wasn't totally convinced that the pile of blankets didn't contain a person, so I closed the door all fast, and booked it back to the counter. They were aghast and all got fixed.

Holy hell, y'all, I've been up since 1:30am here-time and it's 9:14pm now and I don't know how many hours or minutes or whatever it's been, but I am some kind of TIRED. I went to dinner with my aunt and cousin. We had Thai. It was good. Here, have a picture. I'm going to bed.



"Please keep your seatbelt fastened as we're taxiing. We've never had a passenger reach the gate before the plane and we'd like to keep it that way."<sup>1

1</sup> All quotes courtesy of one of the flight attendants this morning.