Flying

India, wow. I couldn't believe that I was one of the four people work chose to travel to India in order to train the team there. The team that would be doing our work, causing 50+ people here to lose their jobs. They had also chosen me to stay on. That was great news. At least I wasn't losing my job, but how shitty for everyone else. Some people were actually glad about this. It was the kick in the pants they needed to get out of here. And there was plenty of notice for most people. Still shitty though.

I'd never flown before. Always wanted to, but never had the money or made the decision on where to go. The way it was set up was to take a small, "puddle-jumper" plane to Chicago from Milwaukee. Then a roughly eight hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany with a five hour layover before our roughly eight hour flight to Bangalore. In INDIA. HOLY FUCK I WAS GOING TO FUCKING INDIA.

Arrangements made, bags packed, ready to go. I was nervous since I'd never flown before. I figured the short flight to Chicago would be a great way to pop that cherry and get used to the idea of flying. Yeahno. I was wrong. 

There was some sort of flight delay and my two teammates and I ended up on a bus to Chicago. Great. My first time flying was about to be an eight hour flight. What if I freaked out? What if I got sick from it? FUCK.

I kept telling myself on the bus ride down to O'Hare that turbulence couldn't be much worse than the nasty bumps we kept going over in the bus. I had Dramamine with so I could take that to deal with any motion sickness I might feel. I had two books in my carryon. I was set. Definitely set. I could do this. 

We boarded. Unfortunately when the company set up our tickets, they didn't bother to have us sitting by each other. Oh well. I guess that's par for the course. More chance to spend the flight reading. I was hoping I'd be able to sleep on the flight. 

The worst part was the anticipation, the waiting for things to go. I was nervous. I couldn't help it. 

The plane started moving towards the runway. 

The plane took off. The worst part was the pressure in my ears. I was battling that by chewing gum, and that sort of helped. Turbulence wasn't bad. Pressure wasn't too bad. Actually I found out flying wasn't all that bad.

Except for the fact that I really couldn't really sleep on the flight. I nearly fell asleep in the airport in Frankfurt during our five hour layover. I remember that I dozed a bit on the flight to Bangalore, but it really wasn't easy to get the rest I needed. When I crashed in my hotel room that morning (it was about 4am Bangalore time), I slept like the dead for about 12 or 13 hours. 

Flying wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.