10 New Reasons to Fly Coach

I decided to break my blog ban to share this slideshow. Lots of international airlines and Delta seem to be making some interesting upgrades to their coach sections. I'm particularly intrigued by a state-of-the-art air filter and cooling system and something called "cuddle class".

Check it out and let me know what you think.

See you in another 6 months.

So Much to Plan, So Little Time

Wedding planning has taken over my life. I've been slipping on planning our trip to Scotland. May is quickly approaching (although the weather right now would make it seem otherwise).

Neither plane tickets nor hotels have been booked. Disaster. I must work to change that this weekend. Hopefully saying this here will make it more likely to happen.

Germaphobes Anonymous

I confess, I'm a huge germaphobe. Usually I'm pretty good at keeping my insanity under-wraps. I walk through the world and people think I'm a normal person. In reality, I would love to live with a germ zapping force field around me that would kill the germs off anyone that came near me. It is becoming increasingly hard for me to not run in disgust every time a person coughs without covering their mouth.

This is why when I saw the New York Times article How Not to Get Sick From a Flight I immediately dropped everything and read it.

I already have a system that I believe helps keep me safe from germs on flights.

1. I take Airborne before I go to the airport. 
2. I try not to touch things in the airport or airplane.
3. Since it is impossible to not touch anything, I carry hand sanitizer with me.
4. I try not to touch my face.
5. I wash my hands as much as I can without having to enter gross public bathrooms. If I do have to go into public bathrooms I have another system to try and leave cleaner than I went in.
6. Pray that the person sitting next to me isn't sick.

This may seem crazy, but I would like to point out that lots of people take it a step further. The people interviewed for the NY Times articles were buying all sorts of things to keep the germs at bay.

•  Disposable face masks
• Antiseptic spritzers
• Airline seat covers
• Portable air purifiers (hangs around your neck)
• Nano UV scanners (uses ultraviolet light to kill germs on surfaces)

While I completely understand what motivates these people, I'm way too cheap for all that. The article also mentioned that some people wipe down the arm rests and trays with disinfectant wipes. That is something I could get down with.

Although most of the article didn't give me tips I could use, it did give me a comforting new fact. Major airlines deep clean their planes once a month and do lighter cleanings more frequently than that. This made me happy because I didn't think they were deep cleaning those suckers at all.

Any other germaphobes out there? We've got to stand together...but not too close.

How Murder and Nudity Ended My Thanksgiving

I'm on the flight back to New York from Atlanta (thanks for the free internet Airtran) and I am shocked and appalled!

A guy sitting across the aisle and one row in front of me is watching a movie on his laptop.  I don't know what movie it is but there has been a fully naked woman on the screen for the past 15 minutes.  First she was having sex, then she was chasing after her partner and trying to shoot him, then she was running from some masked man who actually killed her partner, and finally she got killed.  All naked.

Honestly, I'm not sure if it was the nakedness or all the killing that disturbed me more.  It's not like I'm against movies with nudity and murder.  That isn't the point.  The point is that we are on a plane.

What if a child were in my seat!?  The poor thing would be traumatized or worse yet not care at all.  Kids these days are growing up too fast.

Either way there should be a thing called plane etiquette.  Not watching inappropriate movies should be right after keeping your hands to yourself.  Did I mention the woman I sat next to on the plane to Atlanta grabbed my thigh when the plane landing startled her?

What is wrong with people?

How to Survive Traveling Across the World

Traveling to Sydney, Australia meant 2 very long plane rides and 3 very different time zones.  Somehow I made it here in one fully awake piece.  Here is how:

1.  Don't sweat the small stuff.  This is the advice Boyfriend gave me that I didn't really listen to at first.  Our first flight left JFK for LAX at 6:30am.  We got to the airport in enough time which is really important to me because I hate rushing.  We were flying Qantas so naturally we head to that terminal.  Turns out that the Qantas staff doesn't show up at the airport that early.  WTF?!  I immediately go into panic mode.  We find out that we have to go to the American Airlines terminal.  That would have been nice to know.  It all worked out and we checked our bags, got through security, and to the gate in enough time.  The 30 minutes until it worked out were filled with me cursing all airport staff under my breath.  All that stress for nothing.

2.  You must sleep!  On both flights we slept a good portion of the time.  It is so key.  If we hadn't of slept on the first flight we would have been zombies all day in L.A.  If we hadn't slept on the second flight we would have been bored for one thing, and fucking comatose our first day in Sydney.  Because we slept we were able to have a great time hanging out in Manhattan Beach in L.A. and we had enough energy to spend our first day in Sydney exploring - not sleeping. 

3.  Pack a light carry-on.  I knew this would be important because I had to lug that thing around L.A. all day.  Also, we got to Sydney a few hours before our hotel room was ready so I had to carry it around when we first started checking out the sites.  It was still heavier than I would have liked but considering I usually treat my purse like it was a Mary Poppins hand-me-down I think I did ok.

4.  Fly Qantas.  I started out hating them because they weren't at the stupid terminal when we started out trip but I got over that.  The plane, the crew, everything is awesome.  Trust me.  On a flight that long in economy it makes a big difference.  If I were on American Airlines I probably would have shot myself.

All-in-all the trip to Sydney was a lot better than I thought it would be.  The hardiest thing was figuring out what time I should be taking my birth control since the time zones were all over the place.  Getting accidently pregnant is not something I want to happen on this trip.