Writer's Block: Up in the Air

[tabular_rasa]

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It's never even occurred to me to use the Internet or make a phone call while on a plane flight, except using my cell phone once the plane has landed to see if whoever is picking me up has arrived. First of all, I fly internationally just as often as I fly domestically, and until recently you couldn't use the Internet or make phone calls on those flights. However, now that you can, it's expensive to hook up to their network-- at least on the flights I've been on. I might enjoy using the Internet if it were free, but I still don't think I would use the phone because that seems rude to the other passengers around me. But I also just don't like phones.

On domestic flights, I usually treat myself to a trashy magazine and make sure my ipod is charged. That usually holds me.

On international flights, like Europe or the nine times I have flown back and forth from Japan to the US, I treat myself to several trashy magazines, a novel, a fully-charged ipod, and hope to God they have the personal movie screens on the back of the seat in front of you rather than the one big screen at the front, because I like to be able to choose my movies and not have to crane my neck to watch them. However, it's interesting; I think my zoning-out skills have gotten amazing in the time I've been in Japan, because on my last flight to and from the US I didn't do much of anything except sit there listening to music and waiting for the flight to be over-- and it was strangely one of the shorter-feeling international flights I've been on!

I cannot sleep on planes. I wish I could-- dear God, I wish I could-- but I can't; I've accepted that about myself and have stopped trying.

When I fly with my family obviously I talk to them, but I've noticed the protocol about talking with passengers is different between international and domestic flights. On international flights, there are often so many nationalities and languages represented that you can't be sure the people next to you will understand you. Also, there's just this vibe that you should be quiet, because a lot of people sleep through the flight. However, on domestic flights I've often talked to the people next to me, even if just a short conversation before takeoff. I also once sat at the very back of a small plane, right next to the single flight attendant's jumpseat, and she chatted with me for practically the whole flight, lol.

Comments

[ko-mo-re-bi.livejournal.com]

Ugh,I can't sleep on planes either... Not without a couple of those little liquor bottles, anyway. When I flew to Japan, though, I wasn't of age yet, so I had to ride out all 12 hours. Somehow I didn't really get bored, restless, or even tired - the excitement of losing my abroad-travel-virginity kind of warded off any variety of discomfort, and I was honestly having a pretty good time just listening to all my CDs, reading my Japanese dictionary, and staring out the window.

[ascenseur.livejournal.com]

I've only been on a plane two times, and both those flights were about an hour, so my experience is a little limited...but ugghhh I seriously hate the talking-with-fellow-passengers issue. I know a lot of people handle it really well, or even get excited about it, but it just makes me uncomfortable. Maybe if they're extraordinarily friendly or something, but I have yet to encounter that, haha. Just people who drill me about the book I'm trying to read and spend the whole flight talking about how much they need to throw up. (That's a little unsettling.)

[tabular-rasa.livejournal.com]

I've actually never had alcohol on a plane flight-- maybe I should try it! I think I'd always been afraid of it making me sick, but when I fly without my airsick little brother I don't really get affected by the turbulence, etc. (But the combination of smelling him + motion does often make me nauseous).

I was wide-awake and excited my very first trip abroad, too. I was also sitting next to my sister, who was going through the same emotions, so there was a lot of sharing our observations and writing entries in our travel journals every five minutes.

On the other hand, it's funny how becoming more travel-experienced makes things easier, too. The 14-hour flight from Detroit (my nearest airport) to Japan makes flights to Europe feel like a walk around the block. And I've now flown to or from Japan four times completely by myself, and so now when I have company on an international flight I feel so lucky to have someone else to share the responsibilities (and luggage-lugging) with. And flying internationally with my entire life in two suitcases several times means that flying domestically with a single carry-on feels like this beautiful hassle-free luxury!

[tabular-rasa.livejournal.com]

It is a really odd phenomenon, if you think about it. You wouldn't speak to these people in any other public situation, like standing in line at the store or sitting next to them on a city bus. I don't talk unless they initiate, but if they do I'm friendly and luckily they usually don't talk the whole flight. There does at least seem to be an unspoken relationship between the length of the flight and conversation. People barely ever talk on the international flights, and conversations seem shorter on cross-country flights than brief jumps between neighboring states. If the flight is only 20 minutes long, you could politely have a conversation that long and it wouldn't be weird. But try to talk all the way from NYC to LA . . . even the best of friends would need to take a break.

LOL person talking about throwing up. I guess it's not so bad as long as they don't actually follow through >.< I'd probably just say to them, "Yeah my brother gets airsick all the time, it's really embarrassing when he does it in his seat. You should go to the bathroom just in case" and then use my sweet solitary time to read :-P