I woke today because of the heat. It has been quite hot in Szeged lately. However, I was also anxious. I've never been on a flight as long as I was going to take today. At least, not consciously. I know, however, that if I'm anxious beforehand, I will be all right during the event. It has happened to me several times.
My mum did say that I'm the one who decided to do the trip. I explained that it was like having two people inside me. One is screaming at me what I'm doing and I must be crazy. The other half wants the adventure. I let the adventure part win unless it's something unnecessarily dangerous. Therefore, off I was. Not that I didn't have three freak-outs while buying the tickets. However, the key is to let yourself be scared and do it anyway.
I booked my flight with Qatar. It was either that, or Emirates. I wasn't going to go with anything cheaper than that, as I knew I needed a level of comfort to reassure myself. However, with Emirates I would have had to change planes in Kuala Lumpur again, and I didn't want the extra hassle. Qatar had direct Penang flights from Doha. My cousin, whom I'm visiting, warned me when he spotted a sale on tickets in January, so I got them then.
Reaching the airport today was no easy task. As I live in the South of Hungary, I always have to travel a lot to get to the airport. I could have tried the train, but they're repairing the tracks, so that would have meant a bus and a train. Instead, my lovely boss offered to drive me.
It would have been easy, but suddenly the cars slowed and then stopped in front of us. They barely moved for a while. We called my mum as she has access to the Internet. She notified us that there had been an accident and they were detouring traffic from the M5. Slowly, with some driving skills we managed to get to a sideroad in an hour. It was scary, but I got to the airport an hour and a half before takeoff.
I went through check-in and security, but they held up my bags. The hand-massager again. I got a bottle of overpriced water and chatted with mum about how I got in on time. I took an aspirin for my circulation and waited for boarding.
Surprise, I meet a colleague of my cousin, whom I visiting! She's going to Penang too. We chatted a bit, she was very interested in my travel plans to Japan. She said she thought of going there herself, and I told her I would upload to my blog my detailed travel plans once I did them. That way they would be based on reality. Of course, with all travel plans, you always include some guesswork as to how long things are going to be.
Boarding finally came and I took my very comfy window seat. Luckily, no one sat next to me. It was probably the biggest plane I've ever been on, and according to my flight info the next plane was going to be even bigger. Sadly, I was over the wing, but while we were turning, I managed to get a few good shots.
Interestingly enough, the screen didn't seem to be touch screen. However, I really loved the headset they gave. I can't push the earbuds into my ears properly, or if I do, it becomes painful after a time. So I browsed through the movies and found that most I've seen. However, I have wanted to see “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, and they had it, so that's what I saw. It was an interesting movie with a unique style that I think appeals more to Eastern Europeans.
Meanwhile, they brought dinner. They gave a menu beforehand, but I have picked a non-lactose meal with my ticket. They had my special meal put aside with my name and seat. So nice! The steward who served it was pretty good-looking too. He said my name and called me "mam". I almost told him to stop that, because I've been single so long, I feel a blush coming on every time he smiles at me.
The meal turned out to be chicken with vegetables and rice, a small salad, fruits and crackers with spread. They had alcohol, so I had a nice glass of chardonnay. I ate it all as I skipped lunch. Then they took away the trays and served tea and coffee. I had some nice tea with a slice of lemon.
Afterwards, I visited the ladies’. Why I'm mentioning this is they actually had some kind of scent bottles in there. Didn't try them though, because I have very sensitive skin.
I returned to my seat, but it back, and decided to close my eyes for a bit. On the entertainment system I put on Suits and that was a great background to rest. If course, it wasn't very comfortable any way, but I managed to gather some energy. Then landing came. I was surprised as to how well I've taken flying so long, and that gave me confidence for the next, longer leg of my trip.
As I exited the plane, I was hit by the warm air of Doha. It was very hot, even though it was night. They took us to the airport by bus. I got on and put my heavy backpack between my legs. A family got on as well, and the guy with his own backpack stood so close, I had to back up a bit. Through the long ride he kept bumping his pack against my stomach. I had nowhere to go. After one stronger hit I knocked on his back and told him to be more careful as I'm there. That was when he noticed me and stood a bit differently. Now I'm not small by any stretch of the imagination, so I must have had my invisibility cloak on.
When we exited the bus, I was hit by the hot air once again and hurried into the cooled airport. I had to go through security again, and they made me throw out my water bottle! WHY??? It made no sense, and I told them how stupid it was. Probably just a ploy to sell overpriced water again.
After security I checked the flight information. That's when I felt hopeless anger. My flight had been delayed by 3 hours! 3! Why? WHY? Only one other flight on the whole board had been delayed. I was already pretty tired, there were still 2 hours normally until my flight, so that meant 5 hours at the airport. On top of that my phone had a hard time connecting to the internet so that I could unload my troubles on my mum, and I tried to look for my newfound acquaintance, but she wasn't around. She had blue hair, so I have no idea how I didn't spot her. Shouldn't have been that hard to find. So slowly, I resolved to wait out the many hours and explore the airport a bit. It was good for my circulation to walk around.
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