14 Hours of Bliss

I’m writing this from my plane, an Airbus 380-800, the largest plane in the world. It’s a double decker all the way down. It’s pretty cool because we down on the lower level have no idea there is an upper level filled with luxuriously wealthy individuals and bored old couples who are apparently choosing to splurge in South Korea. I’ve already watched a couple movies and taken a nice long nap. According to my little TV, we have 8 hours and 15 minutes until we arrive in Seoul. So far, it’s been a very pleasant flight! To start, I got a window seat, which is my favorite because I love looking out the window. Second, there is no one sitting next to me! I mean there’s a Korean guy in the aisle seat on my row, but there’s no one in between us, which I’m sure they don’t get up on the second floor. Third, the guy sitting in the seat in front of me has no idea how to recline his seat back and so I’ve had TONS of room with that including the empty space next to me.

And I didn’t know planes did this now, but they have cameras on the outside of the plane that we have access to in our seats! There’s one at the very front of the plane so we essentially see what the pilots see, which is pretty much just clouds—like we’re flying right through clouds and all you see is white. There’s another camera on the tail that faces the direction we’re flying in, so you see the whole plane and whatever is in front of it…clouds. And then there’s one under the plane that shows what we’re flying over. That’s my favorite, but only when there are no clouds and you can actually see the ground. It is very cool.

Korean Air is telling the truth when they say in their commercials, “Excellence in flight.” The little cabin section I’m in has about 15 rows with 10 seats in each row. And there are four of those sections on the lower level. We have 5 flight attendants for our cabin alone. There are four regularly dressed girls, and then one who looks like their leader. About 4 hours in, they served us dinner. I got the chicken with rice which is pretty good for airplane food. I’ve also had about four or five cans of coke because on these international flights, when you ask for a drink, they don’t just bring you a cup, they bring you a cup and give you the entire giant airplane coke can, which looks like someone just melded two coke cans on top of one another. It’s awesome! The only downside of this flight is I have to wake up the guy next to me every time I have to go to the bathroom. And I always feel bad, but it’s his fault for picking an aisle seat! You want the extra leg room, you gotta put up with moving for the people next to you. He always makes this disappointed and annoyed look on his face when me moves, and he definitely moves at a pace where I know he doesn’t like doing this for me. Oh well, only 8 more hours of that!

I had such a great time in Chattanooga with my family. When we got there, I wanted to see Pop and Nana’s new house so Dad and I went there and we got the grand tour. Then I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s to see if they needed any help for the party. Grandma wouldn’t let me help because she said I couldn’t help get ready for my own party. So I just sat there drinking margaritas with them which was really fun! The party was great, it was so easy to just be around family and see them all one more time before I left. It was a really fantastic night and I’m so thankful for every single one of them. This morning, Dad and I said goodbye to the Ericksons 2 and left for Atlanta. We had a great talk about tons of stuff. I love when we get to talk like that. He’s such an encouraging guy and always has wise and interesting things to say and talk about. I really enjoyed it.

So we got to the airport and after a quick bathroom stop we checked my bag and it was 90 lbs! The guy told us we needed to split it into two bags. I was prepared and had packed an extra bag in my big bag. We put all the dense stuff in the smaller bag—as much as we could. It was still more than 50 lbs, but the guy said the weight looked perfect and winked at me, because it obviously was not perfect. But we were glad because now I didn’t have to pay the $100 fee for having an overweight bag. It was a perfect start to the airport experience! I said goodbyes to my amazing, supportive father and went through the short security line. When I got to the other side I was lost. My gate was E3 and I was in F, so I thought E comes before F in the alphabet and the alphabet goes left to right so I should go left in order to get to E, right? Wrong! After walking to the very beginning of F and finding out the thing before F1 was a wall, I knew I had made a mistake. I always hate looking lost in an airport, so I looked around in a store over at the beginning of F for a while and then made it look like I was just over there to look around at that specific store! Brilliant, I know, since everyone would have seen me turn around and been like, “hey look! That guy’s probably lost, let’s make fun of him!” I’m just getting all my insecurities out now before I get to Thailand.

To spare you the suspense, I made it to E3 with plenty of time to spare, which is more than I can say for most of the people on that flight. I would say that probably 1/3 of the passengers arrived at the gate within 15 minutes of boarding. I was a little shocked, but if this airline would wait for 6 crazy Americans before takeoff in Houston, they would wait for some confused Koreans and older travelers.

I wish I could sleep right now, but I’m just not in the mood. I’m avoiding waking up the guy next to me, but it’s so dark in here I can’t even tell if he’s awake. Whatever. I’m going for it.