Day 1: Plane Trip

          For those of you who are interested, I thought I’d give out details about my actual flight. For those of you who are not interested, too bad. By reading this far you have been ensnared in a Maasai eye-lock and will be unable to look at anything else until you finish this post. If you do, you will go blind (please see Legal Terms and Polices).
          Being a seasoned international traveler is quite nice. You get lots of perks, like your own blog, a tan, and a spot on the Leno Jay Show. You also learn a whole lot about stuff that regular air travelers aren’t privileged to know. Like whether that whooshing sucking noise when you flush the toilet means that everything is getting sucked outside the plane to free fall to earth. I first took a plane from Seattle to Amsterdam, Holland, and then from there to Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA).

[Coming Soon – World Map with Flight Paths!]

          A few facts about the trip:
          •   Total Trip Time: 24 hours
          •   Top Flight Speed Seattle to Amsterdam: 913km/h (560 mph).
          •   Cruising Altitude Seattle to Amsterdam: 10,720m (35,175 ft).
          •   Flight Time Seattle to Amsterdam: 10 hours.
          •   Top Flight Speed Amsterdam to KIA: 884km/h (549 mph).
          •   Cruising Altitude Amsterdam to KIA: 11,582m (38,000 ft).
          •   Flight Time Amsterdam to KIA: 8½ hours.
          •   Minutes spent popping my ears: 7
          •   Number of Movies watched: 4
          •   Quality of food (1-10): 5
          •   Best Airport: Seattle (free wi-fi).
          •   Thing I missed most: Root Beer.

          Some advice for first time international air travelers:
          •   Buckle your seat belt over your blanket. That way you won’t be woken by the Air Hostess to make sure that your seat belt is in fact buckled.
          •   Do not flush your sunglasses down toilet. The Airline Hostesses really don’t like it. And I mean like, they REALLY don’t like it. In fact, it would probably be best if you didn’t tell them. If you flushed your sunglasses down the toilet, that is.
          •   Keep edible and your entertainment in a backpack separate from your carry-on.
          •   The Air Hostess will tell you to keep your backpack under the seat in front of you. Don’t listen to them, they have it backwards. Put your backpack at your feet and your feet under the seat, there by giving you more leg room.
          •   Don’t look like a terrorist.
          •   Or suspicious.
          •   Stay up as much as you can before getting on the plan. As soon as you get on the plane, begin sleeping according to the time-zone of your final destination. This will eliminate jet-lag if done properly.

          For all you who are afraid of flying, I thought I’d post a few inspiring words here. (Warning: if you really are afraid of flying, you probably shouldn’t look at that post…)


E’ya! - Tate


P.S. – If any of my readers just happens to be in Greenland and you just happen to come across a pair of sunglasses embedded in the bottom of a crater, I have no idea how they got there. They’re all yours, a free gift from America.


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