I am lucky enough to have a zillion weeks of vacation per year. So instead of sitting at home during my 2 week holiday, I figured why not see Amsterdam, Berlin and Frankfurt. The scariest part of travelling alone is not the getting mugged or robbed, but rather the idea that if I get lost, I cannot yell at the girlfriend for reading the map incorrectly, or more accurately, yell at the girlfriend for reading the map correctly while I wasn't paying attention.
The plane trip is always a terrible way to start. The worst part of travelling is actually the travelling. I am lucky in that I can't stay awake on the airplane. It's impossible. I am guessing I would make a lousy pilot.
People always try to sound so worldly on these transcontinental flights. One lady piped up as we were getting ready for takeoff. "Is today Friday? Is that today? Friday?" Wow, you are so caught up in your whirlwind adventure around the Earth that you do not know what day it is! Was the connector from Vancouver to Calgary really that disorienting? She screwed up next, however. She said "hmmm... So I guess tomorrow is Saturday?" She said it like a question. Okay, so now you aren't a world traveller, you just don't understand how a "week" works. Not impressed.
The flight crew always tries to get the passengers to put down the window shades so we can get 2 hours of sleep during the flight. Everyone does it-- well, everyone but the one person sitting between me and the setting sun. He's peering out that window like a five year old who's lived in the basement their entire life. "Look, THE SUN!" He's all excited. Of course, he's now casting forty-foot shadows all along the otherwise dark grey cabin, so no one can sleep. Everyone has earphones now too, so handkerchiefs and kleenex are out. Don't need em. Just keep sniffing for eight hours -- no one except the one guy trying to sleep can hear you! He's really easy to spot-- the one laser beam of sunlight in the entire cabin is shooting on him like he's performing an opera solo.
