February 15, 2013
After months of planning, it was finally time for me to jet off to China for my semester abroad. I was going to be living on the other side of the world by myself for 5 months leaving all my friends and family behind. And in order to get there, I needed to take a plane. For the first time ever. To China. Alone.
The flight from Maine to New York was scheduled nice and early, so I didn’t have a lot of time to worry. I cried when saying goodbye to my friends, and cried when saying bye to Huy. Walking through the gate to security by myself was a scary experience, considering I had never even flown before and was also crying like a baby. I had the rose from Valentine’s Day with me, a piece of Huy.
Waiting to board the plane, I bought something to nibble on at Starbucks, which I don’t even remember what it was. All I remember is it was overpriced. I think I even bought water! I waited in the boarding area, using the Internet in my phone for what would be the last time before departing the country.
Finally it was time to board. I got on the plane and was happy that I had a window seat, thinking maybe if I was susceptible to motion sickness that it would help. A lady was sitting next to me on the JetBlue flight to NYC, she looked like she was a frequent flyer, scoffing at me as I struggled to get my luggage into the overhead cabinet. I sat in my seat and looked out the window at the runway. Suddenly the plane began to move and I started to freak out. I held on for dear life to the seat as we were about to take off. I didn’t know if I should close my eyes or not. And then we stopped. Turns out we were only taxiing on the runway before takeoff. 😂
Of course my stomach was still uneasy because I wasn’t sure when the plane would decide to continue its lurch forward. I was trying to distract myself with the little screen on the seat with the map, the weather, the speed of the plane, which luckily still said 0 mph. And then it was time. The plane took off without warning, shooting across the runway, so bumpy. I could see the wings bouncing around and thought: this can’t be safe!
And next thing I knew we were going up. And not just up, around. Around and around in circles. I thought for sure I was going to puke and it would probably be on the frequent flyers lap and her outfit would be soiled before she made it back to the city for her business meeting. Deep breaths. I heard that you should focus on your breathing if you think you’re going to be sick. Where was that? Web MD? Not sure but it worked, and once we were in the clouds, I was kind of happy. I thought: this isn’t so bad! And for some reason thought of the weather channel, no idea why.
After the initial shock of being in the air, I remembered I had to go to the bathroom. I looked at Ms. frequent flyer; she was comfortable in her seat carelessly flipping through a magazine. I thought about holding off until reaching JFK, but decided I couldn’t wait because I was about to start bouncing in my seat like a child, and that’s more embarrassing that disrupting her from her Vogue. She let me up with a huff and a scurried to the restroom in the front.
I almost regretted it. It was strangely windy in there, not to mention a tad bit bumpy. How the hell does anyone do the dirty in here??? Disgusting. I did my business and went back to my seat. They served drinks and then next thing I knew we were landing. It was a little later than scheduled since there was a delay in Portland. I didn’t know how big the airport was, just knew I needed to change terminals. I knew I had plenty of time to do it, but that was before the delay.
I got out of the plane and learned that I needed to take some sort of “sky train” to the next terminal for my connecting AirChina direct flight to Beijing. I was wearing my winter jacket and my 2 luggage and 2 carry-ons were HEAVY. Of course there was a ramp that I needed to go UP. So I was late, dripping with sweat, and almost too weak to drag all my shit to the terminal alone.
I finally made it to the counter and was told to bring my baggage to the luggage people. This big dude took my bags and said something that I could not understand for the life of me. Embarrassed I said “what??” And he repeated “why you so late?!” I tried to explain that my Portland flight was delayed and then realized he didn’t give a fuck.