Entry 1:
I am in a large jet going 625 miles an hour at 40,000 feet altitude. So far we have been sitting in planes for most of the past 24 hours as follows – 2 1/2 hours from Tampa to JFK in New York City, 15 + hours from JFK across the pole to Seoul, South KoreaI, and now our final leg of about 6 hours from Seoul to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The nicest surprise has been how comfortable it is to fly Korean Air. The economy class cabin is more spacious than U.S. airliners and every passenger has an amazing little screen and a remote. With this I can access cameras that look in all directions outside the plane, I can track our progress on a map and see all the flight details, I can watch a wide selection of movies (I’ve seen four so far!) and play any number of the usual games. I am well entertained. I haven’t touched my Kindle yet.
The biggest challenge so far has been trying to sleep sitting upright. Others have been doing it , but the task of keeping my head in place and my arms and legs comfortable requires so much attention that I haven’t been able to drift off like I’d like to. I took a sleep aid pill at the midway point of the long flight and did get a little groggy and it was still in effect at the beginning of this flight. I caught myself dreaming once – I was watching my horse look over a fence when he decided to jump it right in front of me. I snapped awake and made a little surprise noise but no one noticed. That was the only time I know I was sleeping, kind of.
I watched “Memoirs of a Geisha” and the nobleness of the geisha tradition reminds me of the bearing of our flight attendants (the women). They are quiet, speaking only when necessary, very proper and polite, quite beautiful, slim, strong and capable. Their uniforms are pristine and dressy. They must have a dress code that applies to everything including makeup and hair because they are all very similar. I was told that they all begin their training in local flights and only the best ascend to international travel. The jet we had on the long flight was the biggest with three levels, business class on the upper level, economy and first class on the middle level and a staff lounge on the bottom. It was an awesome, big plane.
We’ve had three good meals so far. They were good in that they were all recognizable foods, not too much and not too little, and served hot. The only thing I miss is having breakfast. Everything has been a dinner meal which makes me feel like I’ve had three days worth of dinner and I don’t know if it’s been morning on any of those three days… something has been missing. But since there are several other reasons why it’s hard to tell what time of day it is, I can’t really blame it all on the meals. We are kind of like babies - they feed us and then they turn off the lights and encourage us to go to sleep. But I’m probably not going to sleep for a while now since I’ve taken some Excedrin to ward off the beginnings of a headache. I am clear as a bell and alert as I ever am.
It will be about 22:30 hours when we arrive in Phnom Penh and I haven’t heard what will happen when we get there, but I can imagine it taking a while to gather all our baggage (11 huge checked bags and 2 carryons for six of us) and get to where we’ll be for the night. So the journey has been good so far and I have enjoyed it. That being said, it has also been a very long sit.
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