Last required post

I guess in this post I will talk about the blogging experience because I don't want to begin another story and have no one read it.  I can picture you saying it now Mrs. Stoklosa "but people WILL read it".  Unfortunately the Inconvenient Truth (did you see what I did there?) is that my blog will probably now fade into the deep recesses of the Web.  When I go on a trip again it will be fun to write about it here but the odds of my words ever reaching another persons retinas are very unlikely.  Heck only about six people from our class ever commented on my blog anyways.  Oh well.  This was for my own enjoyment mostly, because it is/was enjoyable, but its a little saddening to know that no one is following it.

When I go to France this summer I will write all about my American Airlines flights there and back so if any of you are so inclined feel free to check out this blog.



so long
-max

Wrapping it up

To wrap up this around the world adventure I will say that we did get on a flight from SFO to DEN an then from DEN to FLL.  As if the succession of flights coming back from Asia had not been bad enough yet, there was a storm in DEN that delayed the incoming flight, our plane.  When the storm cleared enough for the plane to land the pilots had timed out, pilots can only fly a certain number of hours per day and because they had been stuck in a holding pattern the pilots did not have enough hours remaining to make it to FLL, so United had to find us replacement pilots which only furthered the delay.  Suffice to say we ended up on the worst seats in the entire plane and ended the trip horribly.  When we got home I think I slept for an entire day.

Thank you guys for joining me on my recantation of my around the world trip.  I hope I managed to keep some of you interested.


-max

Running through airports somehow became the theme of my life.

As the TSA finished fondling my things and poking and prodding me with there wand my dad was just beginning to get his dose of extra screening and so he had me, you guessed it, run through San Francisco airport after a plane that was set to leave in about 60 seconds.  Thankfully we were as far away from the gate as one could possibly be, so, as I'm sprinting down the concourse in my wrinkled suit (when flying standby you have to be dressed up) and my disheveled hair I'm thinking to myself, wow, I have to got to look insane to all these travelers .  When I got to the counter, wiping sleep out of my eyes, I began to give my spiel about how I was a stand-by passenger and I wanted to know if I would be able to catch a seat on this flight my attention was directed towards the window where a Boeing 767-300 was just being pushed back from the gate.  I must have given the gate attendant the most mournful look because she came out from behind the counter and said  don't worry son (I was like 14 at the time) there is another flight leaving in 30 minutes.  Sure enough one of the flights to Denver from SFO was delayed and so we would still have a chance to make it to our beds that night.  I walked over to that gate agent, gave my spiel, and procured two seats just as my dad came strolling up and I guess he didn't know that this was a second flight because he asked me what was wrong.  After I explained to him that I had run to the gate just in time to watch the plane pull away we just smiled at each other knowing that it had to happen sometime and we were glad it decided to happen in the states.

Ugh. It's that kind of day.

So after getting no sleep on the flight we land in San Francisco after going back in time (due to the crossing of the International Date Line on trans pacific flights going east you end up landing about 3 hours earlier than when you left the previous day) we had to go and pass through immigration.  Due to the scheduling that airlines use most flights arrive in "banks" with all Pacific flights arriving in the same time frame and then European flights arriving in another.  For this reason there were big lines in immigration but United pulled through for us again and had a line separated for people catching connecting flights.  When we got through immigration we were at the front of the airport and had to go to the check in desks and make sure we got our new boarding passes printed and then we had to go through security again, in case we picked up a knife in the 100 yards it took to walk from immigration to the new security line.  I understand the reasoning for the double security so I digress.   Anyways, we were running late for one of our flights so we had to sprint into security again and low and behold we must have looked very, very threatening because like always we got randomly selected for extra screening by the lovely TSA agents.

The flight

I will use this post to rant about all the negative things that happened during this flight.  I love United Airlines, who is now set to merge with Continental airlines, and I do not mean to imply that they are a bad airline just that I had a bad experience on this flight.

The takeoff was fine and enjoyable but this was the last time when I was allowed by the Flight Attendant to use the window because all of the other Business class patrons had fully working seats and they were trying to sleep.  One consolation with the seat was that the leg rest did come up which allowed me to get more comfortable than I would have been able to in economy class.

As soon as the first meal finished I looked on as every single business class passenger quickly reclined their seats until I was the only one still in the upright position.  People looking on would have been perplexed due to me being the only one still in the upright position.

At some point during the flight I was able to be tired enough to close my eyes and obtain stage one of sleep.  But then I was being shaken and my dazed mind hoped that it was turbulence but it persisted where turbulence would have faded out.  I cracked open an eye and saw my new least favorite person (due to them not letting me get sleep).  I asked my Dad why in the world he was waking me up.  Writing this now, I have no clue what he said but what he said is not important.  Its that he woke me up.

Sorry if I seem scatterbrained but I just remembered something else that irked me.  I was trapped in my seat.  The person next to me was fully reclined and the two people in front of us as well.  This left no way for me to get to the isle without hopping over the sleeping man next to me.


-max

Business Class

After sprinting through the airport on our way to the plane and securing tickets we get on the plane only to find out that there was going to be a delay due to trouble with one of the planes four engines.  At this point I stupidly decided to walk around the airplane and talk to the flight attendants etc. and when I returned to the business class section I was informed that my seat had been moved.  I looked to where the flight attendant was pointing and I saw that it was a window seat so I was like hey, this isn't so bad.  And then I sat down.  What occurred next would plaque me for the entire 12 hours that we would be in the air.  The seat did not recline.  This was a seat that should have turned into a great bed for the night and it was now "stowed in the upright position".  

I will never know if my seat was changed because I am a stand by passenger, because of my age (then 14) or because I was up walking around the plane and they mistook that seat as an empty seat.  

-max

Singapore

Once we landed in Singapore it was time to burn five hours before we had to catch a six hour flight to Tokyo. Maybe it was the excitement of being in a new airport for the first time or just that I wasn't tired.  For some reason I choose not to sleep which was quite idiotic on my part seeing as we would be moving non stop from this moment forward.  The next morning the plane arrived, a boeing 777, and we went to the ticket desk to see if we would get lucky and get another business class seat but there were none to be had.  We were given a consolation though, premium economy which gives you extra legroom.  The flight took off for Japan and I spent much of it glued to the window drawing in as much of the pacific ocean as possible.

When we landed we looked at our watches and noticed that the first flight that was leaving to San Francisco was leaving very, very soon.  United was kind enough to have set up a line for customers that needed to catch a connecting flight and so we breezed through security and ran on towards the plane.  Once at the ticket desk, gasping and panting, I managed to spit out that we were on the stand by list.  Before the words had finished leaving my mouth I was handed one gold ticket and one blue.  The gold was a business class seat and the blue a economy one.  Walking back to my dad I made the argument that since this was my birthday trip I should get the business class seat.  This turned out to not be as good as I thought it would be.  More on that in the next post.


-max