Travel Day Blues ... June 16 & 17

Ahhh, the travel day. Nothing like getting about five hours of sleep, hopping on Flight No. 1 from Colorado Springs and disembarking from Flight No. 4 in Nice, France.

Traveling alone has its advantages: no herding cats. It also has its disadvantages: nobody to joke with. But I managed to enjoy myself all the same.

I watched Shooter with Marky-Mark from Denver to Dulles and knew in the first 15 minutes why it was in the theaters for a blink of an eye. It was awful! However, it helped pass the time. My first movie over the pond was Breach, about the FBI spy and his capture - that was pretty good – then I saw the final 15 minutes of Zodiac and during the remainder of the flight I caught 10 minutes here and there. I also watched Catch and Release featuring Kevin Smith. Ok, so Jennifer Garner was the lead, but Kevin Smith rocked. Yeah, boring stuff.

Early on – we’re talking during the boarding process – I managed to get irritated by and summarily piss of some Eastern Euro who was as loud as can be. Traveling with his wife and two kids, he was probably miffed when he boarded since two of the seats were 19E & F (777, 2-5-2 configuration), while his wife and other child were in 20D&E. I was in 19G. He spent about five minutes trying to figure out what to do with his luggage (and wasn’t quiet about it in his native tongue).

Then he sent his younger son through row 20, up one row to 19 and across me to get into seat 19F. Mind you, at this point there is not one other soul in Row 19 OR 20. Why he couldn’t scoot across 19 and not climb over me was a mystery. Then he got his wife and other son settled, scootched his butt across 20, made a lot of noise and commotion trying to get their two large roller bags into the bins, smashing my laptop bag in the process. I stood up and asked him to be careful for other people’s stuff. He then proceeded to climb over me and his son to get into 19E. I’m still confused about all the commotion when he leans over to me and tells me that the bins are for ALL passengers, not just me and my bag was taking up the whole bin (clearly not the case since he got his bag, bigger than mine, in there). I told him with my face that he was an a**hole, but my voice simply said,”all I was saying was that you should be more careful of other people’s belongings.”

So I think we’re all settled, right? Wrong.

Somehow, while I had my eyes closed trying to ignore the remainder of the boarding process in my happy place, he managed to talk several people in 19 to move back to 20 – including someone on the other 19 aisle. Then he woke me up and asked me to switch aisle seats with his wife, who was in the left side of my five-seat row.

Huh?

Yeah, he wanted to be near his luggage, which was in the compartment above my head and the one directly behind me.

Alllllllllllrighty then!

At least it gave me a little bit of amusement for a few of the 20ish hours I was traveling.


NOTE: These pictures have nothing whatsoever to do with this post. However, the top one is me at the beach by the town of John the Pin Head, locally known as Juan de Pins. The next one is of the waiter we had by the outdoor cafe. We got a kick out of him -- total rocker clothes (80's) in th 80' heat. Hmmm, 80's in the 80's!! The final one you will see the wonderful man-bag. Murse. Whatever you want to call it. It's very functional. The guy got too far away before I could yank out my camera, but there's a Betty Boopish sketch on his bag. The Euros are famous for the man-capris, man-bag and man-sandles. They're all starting to creep their way to LA and probably NYC, which means that by the time it hits Colorado Springs ... WHAT AM I THINKING!?!?!? It'll never fly there.

Off to do whatever it is I do.