This is written on perhaps 2 hours of total sleep. Forgive any misspellings, you monsters.

I was nervous enough already before a guy who fancied himself a flight attendant began calling unofficial shots. He was working down the aisles, finding available spaces in the overhead compartments and screaming at anyone who was carrying something. I saw blood in the water. This person was going to be the topic of my first post about this trip I’m partaking in.

He was an Italian fellow, portly, with a grey, shitty mustache, Hawaiian shirt, and a submissive wife who allowed him to bark at any question she asked. He was the type of guy that was on his cellphone as the plane was taxiing away from the gate, and was on the thing all the way until the speed picked up. One of the poor flight attendants had to ford through a sea of momentum going in the opposite direction to tell this guy to turn his goddamn device off. He said the following:

“Oh, it’ll be off when we leave the ground. I PROMISE.”

Sure, guy. Let’s just take your word for it. This flight attendant now sees what I see at this point: this man is a child. He finally turns off his iPhone, after forcing the flight attendant to WATCH HIM DO IT because of his insolence, and pulls out a book of Sudoku puzzles. This is when it gets interesting.

I notice very quickly that he is rifling through the pages, trying to find the last puzzle he had been working on. But as he is flipping through them, I notice a similarity: all of the puzzles are unfinished and have X’s through them. He apparently would blow one, not try to just write over his mistake, and move on to the next page. I caught him starting a fresh one. This was still on the “easy” level of this particular book, mind you. He figures out a square, and chuckles to himself. The chuckle is really slow and uses all throat. I wait to see if this is going to be a recurring event, and sure enough, with every written number comes a chuckle of satisfaction, coupled at one point with “that’s right!”

I find that when you’re my height, sleeping on planes is impossible. I couldn’t find an angle, a nook, anything I could take advantage of to grab a little shut eye. Not to mention, the German fella in front of me has his chair leaned all the way back, and his punk daughter keeps grabbing my foot when I try to stretch my legs out. The first time I thought, “oh children, ye of little manners,” knowing full well that they have the propensity to GOOF OFF. Once it happened the second time, and the third time, I was nearing a rage that I hadn’t experienced before. The child was glaring at me through the cracks of the seats, and holy shit, did I want the plane to hit a bit of heavy turbulence while it didn’t have its seat belt on. I would’ve grabbed her foot as she lay unconscious in the lap of the Italian Sudoku champion next to me. 

I get off the plane, knowing that I have to make a connecting flight. The “parking” step, as I call it, is the worst of the traveling process. Everyone is itching to be the first asshole out the door. I too hope to someday cut that ribbon, and it certainly didn’t happen this time around. We are stowed in a “remote” terminal, meaning we all have to get on buses to get to the real airport. I’m pressed for time as it is, so I figure it’s best to start asking questions. I ask one gal, “‘scuse me, ma’am. Is this the direction to Gate A21?” She looks up at a sign right above me that essentially says “this way, you prick.” I laugh. She GOT me. But then she says, “it’s all going the same direction. Everything is this way. Everything is this way. Everything is this way.”

Alright, I get the picture. I look like a moron—plain and simple. I let her get her licks in, and prepare to move on, before this woman in front of me, dressed like something straight out of a Cranberries live DVD, turns around and says to the woman, “it really is so simple. I don’t get how people manage to not understand it.”

Look at you, you pro traveler. Professional traveler. Making the top dollar to stand in line with strangers and prove your worth to nobody by demonstrating how you’ve navigated an airport before. /rant.

I find my gate, and proceed to start airdrumming, people watching, and the like. My plane was supposed to board at 11:35. I look at the clock, and sure enough, it was 11:34 at that moment. I yank out my ticket, and see 31A. I, needless to say, lose my mind, and begin envisioning myself as Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. I sprint, with a heavy backpack and packed roller bag, down to Gate 32. I whip around to notice Gate 30. My initial impression is that this is an homage to Harry Potter somehow. I can’t find the goddamn gate. I grab an airport employee, hoping that she speaks English, only to have her check my ticket and point out that I was looking at my seat number (Ed Note: It was a long day, folks). I sprint back to the gate that I had JUST been at, and sit down in the same seat as I had been in minutes prior, except this time, huffing and nearly vomiting.

I’m in the hostel now, meeting folks. I’ve already been asked to join a band.