More Than A Few Headaches 

Dearest Rachel –

For all that you apparently disliked air travel in general (a fact that I didn’t catch onto until our final year together, and will never quite get over, either that you were like that or that I never knew until then), I would think that flights to the Pacific would be perfectly acceptable to you.  We move almost (but not quite) fast enough to cover one time zone with each hour; we land only a couple of hours later than when we took off, as long as you don’t consider the International Date Line.  For someone like yourself, who never seemed to think there were enough hours in a given day, this would be perfect, as we flew through the air, chasing the noonday sun.

I honestly don’t know how he does it, never needing to get up and walk around, or close up and take a break.  I’d say the same about you, back in the day, but I could watch you nod off as night would fall, always insisting that you were still good to go for a few more hours if you were roused.  Then again, that was at home, where we were comfortable; that can’t really be said of sitting about in economy class on a twelve-hour flight.

Also, for all that I may claim to be mystified by his ability to stay awake, it’s not as if I could bring myself to completely shut down and fall asleep, either.  Not for lack of trying, though; I’d brought a pair of noise-canceling headphones, and they worked reasonably well at drowning out the ambient noise of the plane itself.  It’s just that it takes so much more than that for me to actually be able to properly nod off.  But at least I tried.

It could be the lack of sleep, or the effort expended in a futile cause, but by the time we were nine hours in, I was starting to build up something of a headache.  I can’t remember when I’ve had to deal with something like this in flight; although, to be honest, I generally tend to be able to forget most of the details of the flights themselves.  If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve nothing better to do but to write about this right now, I probably would forget about this current sensation by the time we arrived and made our way to the ship.

Or maybe it’s just the fact that I was hungry and thirsty after so long in the air; once they came around with… breakfast?  I’m not sure if a hot dog counts as such; then again, that was part of my morning repast on our last day in Ikebukuro last time around, so maybe it’s not all that unheard of.  In any event, a little tucker went a surprisingly long way toward relieving those symptoms.  Not all the way, but enough to feel like a reasonable solution to the problem.

The landing into Narita was pretty smooth, too. Sure, the lines through immigration and customs were long, but as headaches go, they were to be expected. We’d filled out our paperwork onboard the plane, so once we got to each respective counter, we were waved through pretty quickly. We even managed to get our bags relabeled for bringing aboard the ship, and finding the representative from the cruise line, with no difficulty.

However, while waiting for some of our fellow passengers to assemble to be transferred to the port, something happened to Daniel’s phone. Somehow, his ‘settings’ app got stuck with a smiley face pattern; every time he tried to access it (in order to hook up to the airport wi-fi or the like, he was confronted with this picture of smiley faces that just… appeared there. He didn’t know how or what to do about it, and I was just as lost as he was as to what to do… until he decided to turn it off and back on again. Sure enough, that did the trick; crisis averted…

Except now, another crisis had to raise its head in short order, also having to do with Daniel’s phone. It’s possible that, with all the effort of trying to finagle the ‘settings’ app, he forgot to put the thing back into his pocket or neck wallet or wherever he normally carries it. Just as we were about to board the ship, he suddenly patted himself down, and realized he didn’t seem to have his phone on him. He’d left it on the bus. Worse yet, when we turned back to inform the staff at the pier, it turned out that the bus had already left to collect more passengers at the airport. However, they radioed the driver to check his vehicle – and he confirmed that the phone was in fact aboard his bus – and return to the pier with Daniel’s phone.

Meanwhile, we sat in the terminal building, with Daniel going “I’m sorry” over and over for delaying us. However, this exact scenario had happened to me when we were returning to the airport in Honduras, and I remember the distraught few minutes of wondering how I was going to get my phone back. That Daniel was more concerned about delaying us than the whereabouts of his phone… well, even though my head was feeling like it was in a vice already, I wasn’t going to get angry. He was feeling bad enough as it was.

Besides, the phone was returned, safe and sound, after a little more than a half hour. Not only that, but the one thing we’d planned on doing – visiting a local gyukatsu restaurant to film our reactions to the meal – wouldn’t have been something we could have done any sooner, as the place didn’t open until five in the evening. So, no harm done.

Anyway, I’ll try and get to that later, honey. For now, I’d appreciate your eye on me, and for you to wish us well, as I’m pretty sure we could both benefit from it.