Dia Dhuit, Ya'll: And so it begins...

And so it begins- my vast aspiration filled journey, my amazing trip of a year coming to its delightful opening, my awe inspiring exploration of my ancestor’s romantic and tragedy filled land on two wheel and in my steady bike saddle…

Ok, that intro is way too dramatic and Travel Writing 101 for me so I will begin without pathetically filling the paragraph full of overused hyperbole and dramatic saturations of useless adjectives reminiscent of Bill Bryson (if you know my annoyance of Bill Bryson’s writing you can laugh here)- or did I just do that in this paragraph anyhow?

I’ve started my trip, leaving Austin, HRH Mr. Furley, and the hot weather for two weeks. I arrived at the airport, saving the $75 car park charge with plenty of time to spare, thanks to a ride from a friend and chatted with two very nice ladies at the check-in counter, who promptly changed my seat assignment to a better seat- uhm, yeah, SWEET! The airlines lock some seats until the last minute. I don’t have an actual assigned seat on my flight back to Austin because of this. They are usually pretty good seats but if you go online to change your seats around, they don’t show up. I’m not sure why they do this but I’m confident it has something to do with dollars- maybe if you look online and see that there are only four seats left in the flight you want, you’ll pay the extra bucks to book that minute instead of waiting another week for the prices to drop.

I had time on my hands at the airport so I walked up and down past all of the gates. Being the sane/insane workout person I am, the idea of being confined to a plane seat for hours makes me shiver. Might as well burn some calories and get the blood flowing before the seatbelt sign dings on. I like to imagine why each person is going to the destination listed above the check desk at each terminal- the Las Vegas line full of people who already look burnt out and not like they need to be gambling away their dough; a mother with her annoyingly talkative child in tow at the Tulsa desk; a group of old ladies clutching their passports over at the Atlanta desk. I’d like to think somewhere wild and warm for them, possibly the discothèques and beaches of Ibiza. I also have to note that Chicago by way of El Paso and then Albuquerque is one of the most creative routes I’ve seen.

The ladies at the check-in desk did me a big favor. As I’m typing, I’m in my seat close to the front of the “regular travelers” section (close to the first classers but far enough away to keep my envy of their expanded leg room and better ice cubes at bay). Much better than the seat stuck way in the back next to the bathrooms. Hopefully their changes will do me well on my flight to Shannon as on this one. They told me it was best to get a front seat on long flights so that you get your food first and then can go to sleep right after. I’ll dig that one. Oh yeah, as I side note, I’m freezing right now in my sweater and I cant feel my left foot because it has turned artic from being next to the floor air vent. There is a seat in between the other person in my row and me- a math or physics prof or student I’m guessing by the journal articles he’s scratching notes on while he reads. When he first pulled them out, I got excited, believing that the diagram on his page was a bacterial operon. To my disappointment I realized it was something mathematical and not descriptions of a favorite bacteria (and yes I do have a favorite bacteria). There is also a guy in the row across with a nice dip cup on his tray table- oh yes, though I’m in route to lovely Newark we still started in Texas my friends. The drink cart just came out proceeded by the food cart. The reservations said it was only a snack but the flight attendant called it lunch. Lucky me since I only had an apple this morning after my run and an iced espresso in the airport. To my disappointment the lunch was cheese pizza, a container of iceberg lettuce with some thick, creamy dressing on the side and a kit-kat bar. No go for me on the pizza. Though I’m vegetarian and not vegan, I usually stick to the vegan meals on airplane for stomach safety reasons- a typical vegetarian meal is drowning in butter, processed melted cheese, and other unknowns for fillers. These cheese pizzas were individual handheld circles that disappear after 5 or 6 bites; the dip cup guy managed to fold his and get it down in only 4 bites and spark a little more of my intrigue of my fellow travelers. The doughy provision interestingly had the same awful yet memory filled aroma of the square sliced pizza pieces served in the Troy High School cafeteria. This prompted me to take out my laptop and start to type, in fear I’d forget this nose-memory connection I wanted to share and I don’t think the mathematician would have enjoyed the essence of my observation . I declined the offer of the calorie filled, nutrient deficient delight and only took the salad with no dressing. A little snack of mainly water that will somehow magically hold my stomach until dinner. Lets see how that one goes. I’ll probably throw the kit-kat at some little kid later on and then laugh as I imagine his hyperactive movements as the sugar flows in his body- ok, so I won’t do that and I admit I did get a little Bryson-esq already after only describing the first steps of my trip. Forgive me for this wont you? Being stuck on the plane for the first hour of this 3 hour 17 minute flight to the Yankee pearl that is known as Newark, New Jersey makes me wish for some type of mind entertainment. I was already tragically defeated by the one star (easy) Sudoku puzzle in the airplane magazine so what else am I supposed to do?