Tales from 77 Feet: The Joy of Traveling

First off, welcome back to campus! Don't worry, I'm not ready to start classes again either.

Here's what I promised from my last blog! I recently did some traveling over Christmas break. I went to Florida to escape the cold and catch some rays. Unfortunately, there weren't many to catch (that's a different story). Before I left for my trip, I decided that I would blog about "people watching." Airports are great places to do that. So please enjoy "The Joy of Traveling" featuring "The Art of People Watching."

After taking to the skies over 65 times in the last couple years, I've decided to proclaim myself an expert on how to fly commercially.

We'll start this off with my flights home. I started in RSW bright and early at 4:45am. Ouch. But that's the price to pay (some of it) these days. A machine checked me in-- that's right, a machine!

The machine.

Now, don't get me wrong. Using the machine was a thrill (except for the fact I only had to swipe my card about 20 times before it accepted it), but I prefer a bright, smiling face to print out my boarding passes.

She even remembered my priority luggage tags!

After she scolded me for having my bag one pound overweight, it was time to head off to security. Now, this is whole other story. You basically get in a really long line, take off your shoes, coat, and belt, and then you go through a metal detector. This is the least fun part of airline travel. But wait-- they now have X-Ray vision! That's right, they now can see under your clothes. Creepy, eh? But there is good news. They sell souvenir T-shirts!

This is what mine said.

And you know what? They even treat poor old nuns like criminals too! Shame on you, TSA.

Well that looks wrong.

***A Note: My special "people watching" photos start below. Any of the following pictures that appear to be of poor quality are mine. I was taking them incognito with my iPhone. I apologize.***

I made it to my gate about 10 minutes before boarding began (yes, I know I was cutting it close). Of course the gate lice were already at the gate. For those un-frequent travelers, gate lice are the people who pretend they are important by standing at the gate 30 minutes before boarding even begins (look for them next time you fly). They pass the time by clicking away on their crackberries. The gate lice today seemed to be business men finishing off a vacation so the outfit of choice were jeans and a suit jacket. Gotta keep it classy!

The ones standing against the wall.

I was even able to photograph one up close!

Boarding was called not long later and I strode past the gate lice on to my aircraft for the ride to Philly, an A320.

That's one sexy airplane.

As the other passengers settled in, I enjoyed a pre-departure ginger ale and some biscoff cookies. I wanted to save my appetite for the delicious airplane breakfast!

Mmmm. Delicious.

After I devoured that delicious, comparable to a five-star restaurant meal, I just chilled out and listened to music. Now whether you're flying to ORD or PVG or HAJ or BOB (bonus points to whoever can explain to me what (and which ones) those are-- use the comment field at the end of the post), there are some things about flying that never change. For example: you're always going to encounter some surly airline employee at least once. Period. Flight attendant, ticket counter, or gate agent-- you'll get one. I promise. On my most recent flight (CLT-RSW), a flight attendant totally 'pwned' this lady for trying to steal a pillow. She definitely could have been nicer about it. Later, I caught her off the job giving another employee a back massage! She could have been serving me another drink!

Talk about unprofessional.

Now why can't we have flight attendants like the one below?

Damn.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. We landed in PHL early (due to tailwinds) and I made my way to the B Terminal for my connecting flight to Indy. But first, I had some something on my list to check off-- a Philly Cheesesteak.

It was toungegasmic (The word is copyrighted to Brooke Florence C.)!

Now, for those of you who don't know, a lot of guys who wear Red Sox and White Sox caps aren't really fans and don't give a shit about the teams. Therefore, you're automatically labeled a douchebag (AKA 'bandwagon fans' ©Alex Futter). I was able to spot two of these at the airport.