I officially arrived back to my home country on the 3rd of June, 2008, at 1:11pm. It has been a long awaited arrival. In order to fully grasp the reason behind my misery-filled seventeen hours bonding time with one (or, to be accurate, two) Economy class seats on two China Airlines aircrafts, one must care to note all the wonderful embellishment that life seems to throw my way.
Okay. Enough with the ornamentations and pretty words. So, my Sunday started out as planned until it came the time for me to move out and check out from my room. We [Anna & I] told Marissa, our RA, that we were going to check out at 2:30pm. It turned out that I own a lot of stuff (surprise, surprise). I had to haul all the things I’m not bringing home to storage, and then pack all my things in a suitcase and a duffel bag, and stuff all that in Anna’s Honda Passport. We officially left at 4:00pm, an hour later than what we planned. We arranged that Anna would drop me off at Sandra’s house in Puyallup on her way down to Oregon, so that I could hang out and catch up with Sandra and then Sandra could give me a ride to the airport at 10 that night.
Anyways, one of my concerns about flying out is the weight of my baggage. I totally think that limiting the baggage weight to 50 pounds per baggage item is ridiculously stupid. (Well, I guess it’s not stupid. It’s just very inconvenient.) Anyways, it’s interesting that both my suitcase and my duffel bag are right around 50 pounds. One is like 50 pounds exactly, while the other is around 48 pounds. They’re both really cutting it close. I brought my purse and my violin with me. When the person asked, how many carry-ons are you bringing with you, I answered two. He looked at the violin and was going to have me check my violin in. Before he could finish his sentence, I told him firmly, this violin is going with me. In my head, it was far ruder. I wasn’t going to let my violin be banged around by their people into little pieces. I am not even done paying for the thing! I think I had the I’m-not-accepting-no-for-an-answer look and so he cowered and asked his coworker. She looked at it and said, “What is that?” And before I had the chance to answer her, she said the stupidest thing I have ever heard come out of a person’s mouth: “Oh, it’s a guitar. You can bring your guitar with you.” I was offended. This is nothing the size of a guitar. I was so appalled I just walked away without saying a thing.
All in all, I would say that the flight from Seattle to Taipei was the worst flight I have ever been on in my entire life. You see, there’s one thing you might want to know about me. My parents love to travel. I first went on an airplane when I was 3 ½ years old. After that, I was constantly going places on planes. I am very used to airplane rides, even 20 hours of flight. I also have a strong stomach, so I never had to use the paper bags they kindly provided in the seat pockets. My mom used to put rolls and butter in them. This flight witnessed me regurgitating on an aircraft for the very first time. So the last three hours of my thirteen-hour flight was decorated with extreme turbulence. It got to the point where people fell down when walking or standing up. It was awful. I was getting a headache but I was doing okay. The thing that triggered the reverse of my peristalsis was the fact that the gentleman sitting next to me took his shoes off and his feet ranked. On top of that, someone in the area had excruciatingly bad BO. I was out. As soon as the fasten-your-seatbelt sign went off I hurried to the bathroom and threw up. I felt a little better afterwards. Then when it was time for a meal, they had the option of some kind of porridge and so I gladly took that option – to the delight of my poor stomach.
The rest of my trip wet a lot better. I had a layover at Taipei for about 3 ½ hours. I had time to eat real food (which cost a fortune - $9 for a bowl of noodles and $3 for bottled water) and freshen up. Then I boarded a plane heading to Jakarta.
When we landed and I stepped out into the ramp, I could feel the rush of humidity wash over me like waves on a beach. All of a sudden, I felt sweaty and sticky. Yuck. O well, I don’t know whatever adventure lay in front of me, but I think this next 3 months will be interesting, to say the least.
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