Light in the Air

Dearest Rachel –

After the chaos of the last couple of days, nearly upending months of planning (mostly, to be sure, on the part of our travel agents – that’s what we pay them for), the first leg of the actual journey proved relatively routine, even boring.  We’d checked in online prior to arriving at the airport, apart from our bags (two apiece, thanks to it being an international flight, and much needed due the entire trip being nearly three weeks in total), which a helpful airline employee guided us through.  Security was fairly straightforward and unhurried, unlike so many previous trips, and while it’s a nuisance to divide one’s personal effects between three or four bins (and collect and reorganize them moments later), the fact that it took but moments is a testament to the relative efficiency of the whole process.

Besides, there are times, even in the most theoretically interesting of life events, such as travel, where boring is preferable to exciting.  Yes, the misadventures make for better stories in the retelling, but one can’t physically deal with an unending string of one misadventure after one forever; eventually, it has to calm down, or you break.

Fortunately, once through security, and settled at our gate (which, admittedly, I walked past at first – I misread our time of departure, 9:17, as our gate number, B-17, until seeing that the flight leaving from there was headed in the opposite direction, to LaGuardia.  At least the correct gate was only a few steps behind us, at B-14), we found ourselves engrossed in our respective news feeds to occupy our time, rather than nervously worrying about whether or not things were going to go wrong.  We were where we needed to be; for now, there wasn’t anything to go one way or another.

Indeed, the only alteration to the ‘plan,’ such as it was, was as we answered the boarding call.  The lady at the ticket counter stopped us, and reprinted our boarding passes, explaining that we had been moved forward several rows.  What she didn’t explain was that (and this is conjecture on my part) these new seats appeared to be Economy Plus seats, with additional legroom.  Perfect for Daniel to stretch out and get comfortable in.

Even better, he’s able to lean his seat back, as there’s no one sitting directly behind him; there’s not that many people on this flight as you might expect – which may explain why we managed to get bumped forward. It looks like every third seat is vacant, which is still enough to look full, when they’re spread evenly throughout the plane,

Although eventually, the light did fade out for an hour or two, the lights on our side of the aircraft suddenly came on at once, unbidden and without warning.  I asked an attendant about it, and she admitted that there wasn’t any explanation as to why it was happening – and consequently, no way to determine how to turn them off.  We would just have to live with it until they decided to wink back out again.

At least our row had the same ‘every third seat’ issue as the rest of the plane; I raised the arms of the seats in our row, moved myself over, and indicated that Daniel rest on the remaining two seats.

Otherwise, it’s been a dull enough leg of the journey to allow each of us to nod off if we were capable of it.  I’ll try to keep in touch, but hopefully, future installments will be a bit more interesting.

Regardless, keep an eye on us, honey, and wish us luck; we’re going to need it.