Airplanes and Ailments

Dear readers, I am writing to you from 34,000 feet in the air. Yes, if you haven’t guessed yet, I am on an airplane, heading to London as I write this. I left tonight, as I am writing this it is still tonight in Illinois, and will arrive in London in 2 hours, 7:30 a.m. there. I have been awake for 15 and a half hours and I will be awake for at least 10 to 14 more. I may take a nap at my host family’s house, but I don’t want to sleep for too long otherwise I probably won’t sleep tonight. The reason I haven’t slept is because I can’t sleep in moving vehicles. I get this weird moving feeling when I try, kind of like I can feel my body moving along with the vehicle. I had thought that this was limited to cars, but apparently airplanes are also a culprit.

In front of me I have this neat little t.v. screen that plays movies, music, or shows a map of my flight along with music. This is how I know that I have exactly 2 hours and 5 minutes before the plane reached London Heathrow Airport, that I have traveled exactly 3021 miles in this plane, and that it is -76 degrees outside right now. Cool right?

As much as I prefer airplanes over trains, I have found that they have one fault to them. Well, maybe more than one, but right now this is the only one that matters to me. I frequently suffer from altitude sickness whenever I go place like Colorado, or, you know, the sky. So as of right now my sinuses are stuffy, my head hurts, it also feels kind of light, I have random bouts of exhaustion, oh, and a new one, nose bleeds. Thankfully I always felt them coming on and was able to stop them. I have a 6 year old next to me with her mom and I’m not sure how she would react to me bleeding out of my nose. She a cute kid, she gave me a jelly bean when her mom let her have them. I didn’t even ask!

My experience at the Chicago airport which I departed from is so-so. Everyone was real nice until I got to security. I understand that they have to be serious, but being rude and making people feel stupid is not professional. After that though, everyone was nice. My plane, surprisingly, boarded and departed on time. Kind of awesome considering the last time I was waiting for a plane my flight was delayed for 2 hours because they had to find another plane. The original one was hit by lightning.

Other than the altitude sickness and the little girl using my lap as a foot rest, my flight has been pretty good. The food, though a little spicy, was tasty, and the movies I watched, thought I couldn’t really hear them, were some of my favorites. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The Expendables are an interesting combination. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the ocean as I was (still am) flying over it. I didn’t get a window seat so that I could take pictures. Soon I will also be eating breakfast before we land. Hopefully it is as good as the dinner. 1 hour and 48 minutes left. Buenos días.