That, was bad as shit! —Dave Matthews Band
Well, here I am, heading out to Dublin. As I write this, I'm listening
to Max's Schala Theme, on my in-ear, noise cancelling earphones. I'm
flying business class (Aer Lingus refers to it as "Premier", but well,
it seems like a semantics game to me — their Business class is
actually first class on most airlines). So far, I'm still in that
weird state of being awesomely surprised and unsurprised at the same
time — I still can't believe I'm heading to Dublin all by
myself. It's taken me more than ten years to get this far, and this is
just the tip of the iceberg.
My goals are only just starting to be fulfilled.
Last night was rather crazy. I had to make sure that my one checked
suitcase was under 50lbs, so I'd pack, repack, check and recheck, and
finally stand up on a scale, while holding the bag to get its final
weight — 42 — not bad (150 is, though! Must work out more). After
packing, it was a mad dash to make sure I had everything all setup for
the actual trip through the airports and security. By the time all was
said and done, it was 11pm, and I had to wake up at around 6am.
With only 6 hours of sleeping time, I awoke quite groggy and slightly
sore (what the hell was I doing last night? Fighting off gorillas?)
with about thirty minutes to get myself put together, drag the luggage
into the car, and get to the airport. Thankfully Rickey was driving,
so I could focus on staying awake and fighting off more gorillas until
we arrived.
From there it was a bit strange — I checked by bag at the ticket
counter (wow — that scale is accurate. Damn!), got my boarding pass
and headed off towards security. Despite the threat level being set up
at orange, security was rather light and involved pretty much the same
old routine: take your shoes off, put your metal items into a plastic
bin, turn your head and cough, etc. Once through security, it was a
simple matter of sitting and waiting for boarding on the first flight
of the day to begin. As I was waiting, I decided to take a short tour
of the terminal two facilities.
What never ceases to amaze me is how little Sky Harbour cares about
this terminal. As I walked through the area, I noticed that after they
restructured the security checkpoint, I guess they decided they needed
to restructure the actual boarding areas as well. The old pizzaria was
missing — in its place was a rather hastily erected drywall covering
the entire entrace; save, of course, for the decorative grating on the
ceiling. That little piece of art was apparently too difficult to take
down, so instead they just cut a ragged hole through the drywall to
let the thing through, and added two more on the opposite wall for
symmetry. The ultimate visual appeal? Total crap. To replace it, they
added a counter in the middle of the old gate 4 area and threw some
refrigerators and cash registers to provide cold refreshments to
customers — naturally, they left the old gate 4 sign up, and replaced
everything else in the area with tables and chairs. Needless to say,
with this kind of haphazard construction going on in Sky Harbor, it's
no wonder people think Arizonans are morons — our own ambassador for
the state, the airport, looks like rednecks built it!
Heading back towards my gate, no sooner did I sit down then my
boarding zone was called — unfortunately I ended up in the middle
seat of an A320, which wasn't exactly pleasant but thankfully this was
just the first leg of the trip. No excitement was to be felt yet
(though I could certainly feel the vibrations of the travelling clown
next to me chewing on chips with his mouth open) but sitting in an
A320 heading towards the same airport you've been to several times in
your life is hardly exciting. Fortunately, the trip was over as soon
as it started, but was long enough to let me gain a few levels in
Final Fantasy III for my DS. Ahh... Chicago O'hare.
Finally in ORD, I decided it was time to actually do some walking and
get some exercise for a change, and started hoofing it out of Terminal
1, towards the international terminal 5. And what a long walk it was
— I even travelled underneath the tunnel of PCP-inspired rainbow
colored neon lights. Quite a sight, considering the outsides of these
buildings were meant to reflect a kind of rusted-out pier feel. After
hopping a tram, and fighting my way through security, I walked around
the entirety of the terminal until I finally decided to sit down in
the lounge and get some actual work done. Out came the laptop, the
EVDO card, and I was hacking away at my window manager settings to
finally get it finished up for some actual work for a change. By the
time I had it just about ready, one of the lounge attendants mentioned
to me that my flight was boarding. Cool. Pack everything up, put the
X60 to sleep, and hoof it back to the plane.
When I first boarded the plane, I expected the seating to be much like
United's Economy Plus — essentially coach with more legroom — but
the minute I mentioned my seat number (4D), I was directed to my left,
in a small cabin about the size of a living room, filled with 24
luxury chairs, and tons of head room. I was immediately dazzled. Once
I had packed away some of my carry-on baggage, I asked if I could move
to a window seat. Thankfully, the cabin was far from full — there's
only about fifteen of us in here — so there were lots of window seats
available for the taking. And take I did.
Dinner, the only meal of the day for me (down tummy, down!) was
incredible. It started out with some appetizers (cheese quiche, small
pretzels, and a cracker with some kind of mushroom and red cabbage). I
couldn't believe how nice the stewardesses were, and still are. Quite
extraordinary (to me, at least). Now the excitement and wonder started
to build — I'm finally on my way to meeting my personal goals of
travelling the world and meeting its people! ...and I'm getting fed
with really nice food for a change. The entrees were simply awesome,
and the dessert was mind-blowing — a wonderful peach pie, with
chocolates, and some perfectly brewed earl grey tea. It's amazing!
So now that I've dumped most of my brain into this blog and my
thoughts have dried up, they're turning off the lights. With that, I
should get some sleep so that I can function tomorrow morning. More on
the trip later — and pictures to come!