Early Morning Flight Story

I posted a while back about my sleeplessness before taking trips. I don't know what it is, but I'll always be up late doing something the night before flying somewhere or driving on a long trip. It's not that packing itself really takes me that long; I'm just slow and manage to do 10,000 other things inbetween writing my packing list and packing the last item. It's rare that I get much sleep before sunrise.

So I thought I'd try a new system: since I'm always up anyway, why not just take an early morning flight and sleep on the way? After all, wouldn't it be easier to get to the airport in the morning and have the whole day ahead of you once you land?

I tried that this time. I got a great price for my flight ($175!) and booked an 8 am flight out of Chicago. (I wouldn't do an early morning going to Chicago from home since I rely upon people to take me to the airport and public transportation isn't as accessible (or at all). I was hoping to take the train this time to the airport, but since I ended up flying on a Saturday morning, Alvin drove me. But at least he was opening at work, so he had to be awake anyway. Maybe just a little earlier than he would have had to have been otherwise. And I'm grateful.) :)

We ended up getting to O'Hare at 7:15 am, and boarding time was supposed to be 7:25. The airport was packed! It was so early on a Saturday morning - what were all these people doing there?? I thought Saturdays were supposed to be empty days for flying! But my flight was full.

Since I was running late, I was worried I wouldn't be able to put my carry-on in the overhead bin. I hate it when airlines require me to gate-check baggage. I get really angry...

And just my luck, I picked the wrong security line.

It was to the point where I was resting on my jacket in one of those plastic bins watching people move quickly through the other lines while I was at a standstill. Why did I make such a poor choice??

This choice of security lines slowed me up so much that I didn't get to run to the restroom on the way to the flight since I was so worried about the carry-on situation. There were indeed a lot of people at the gate. And after boarding, I was right to be worried. I got the last spot in the bin above my seat, and I was the first to board for my row section.

I'm getting ahead of myself in the story-telling. (Although, it's quite likely that no one's even reading this far, because this is quite a long post.)

Anyway, first class boarded and then elite boarded. They got to walk over a special rug that said Elite. Woohoo. Then they closed off that section and opened the regular boarding section without any special rug.

Let me just say that I think this is dumb. Of course, if you're elite, you love the fact that you can board early and there's never really a problem with your carry-ons. But getting to walk on a special rug? Give me a break. If I flew enough miles to get elite status, would walking over a special rug really be on my list of priorities for things I want as a reward for being elite? I also have issues with the whole elite thing in general; I think calling the program "elite status" is just a turn-off. Way to give a superiority complex to some people who really don't need even bigger heads. (I'm not saying everyone with elite status has a big ego, but there were definitely some of them today.) And was the thing that attracted these wonderful people to Continental's elite program the stupid rug they get to walk over?! The rug thing is just dumb...

So I finally was on the plane, in my seat, and forced myself to go to sleep so I wouldn't have to think about having to go to the bathroom. I woke up a few times, one time to drink water, but otherwise, was pretty passed out for the whole flight, even in the bright sunlight.

All in all, the flight experience wasn't too bad. It was crowded. I think ATA has more legroom (especially in the exit rows - the Continental exit rows are like regular rows instead of more room!). The elite status thing bothers me like a bad attitude (could also be lingering because of my last experience with Continental, where I suspected I was bumped off my confirmed flight because of an elite person). The security line sucked. But other than that, it was pretty okay.

We landed and were pulled in to Terminal C instead of Terminal A. A is usually Continental for Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas, and C is everything else. [I suspect that the flight attendant was kind of tired, because he was like, all connections other than Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas are in Terminal C. And he repeated it like 3 times. But who would have a connection back to Chicago?] I was surprised, and as we pulled in, couldn't remember if I had ever been in Terminal C before. Everything was so shiny and new! I walked around looking for a bathroom and when I finally found one in the next concourse of gates, it hit me.

I'd been here before. Everything was starting to look familiar. This was the same concourse that I'd been in last August when I wasn't allowed to go to Pittsburgh. Sigh.

Anyway, I finally found the bathroom. I took the monorail to meet my mom. Got Wendy's on the way home (mmm, chicken nuggets and Wild Mountain Chicken sandwich). Slept for 3 hours after watching part of Mean Girls again. Went out to Brooklyn for dinner with my grandparents and my aunt and uncle. Food was yummy, but I was too tired to play with my camera for pictures. Went back to my grandparents' house and fell asleep again, probably for an hour or so. Which explains why I'm still up now, chomping on pretzels and drinking some really really good apple - peach - passion fruit juice from Costco while blogging.

Going to do some more computer stuff (maybe picture sorting) to get more tired, and then it's off to sleepyland. Woohoo - I'm not setting the alarm!! Yay! How was your Saturday?