Lufthansa and Monkies with Cars

So before I begin to talk about Ireland, I need to explain how I got there.  As awesome as pirates are one does not simply sprout wings and fly over the ocean.  Well, some of us might, but I don't like exercise, so Mad Jack and I flew.
Oh, Mad Jack?  That's this guy:

To prove he's mad the back of his shirt reads:
Sir, your wife is small and very flat.

He's possibly important to the narrative.  Studying in Ireland.  Kinda living with me.  He's nuts.

Anyways...

On August 27, 2012, Capt. Thom flew for the first time.

 

We went on a German Airline called Lufthansa, which I would recommend to anyone.  We had cheap seats in the middle of the aisle and we were both still very comfortable.  I mean, I'm pretty sure I sat next to a retarded Chinese man, but it was still comfortable.

I was incredibly excited about my first flight.  I don't have a picture to prove my excitement, but I can prove I was at the airport:

Look!  There's a plane!

Told you.  And I got on the plane eventually as well.  In a middle seat.  Next to a retard Chinese man.  We've been through this.  Keep up.

 

The whole time we were taxi-ing on the air-way - drive-way, air-port driveway...whatever- I was waiting for it.  Waiting for that moment when the plane would actually take off and I would be flying.  It was nothing like all the flight dreams I've had.  You know, where I sprout wings and then fly into the sun and burn to death, yeah those.

The plane started to shake and bob and like in an amusement park ride, there was this second where I felt weightless and then heavier at the same time and when I looked out the window, (far away on the other side of the aisle behind some chick's head) the earth was falling away.

At first, all I could see out of this tiny distant window was the cars in the airport, then they got smaller and I started seeing houses and woods and everything getting gradually smaller and smaller and then just the sky.

 

At 835 feet, I realised we'd only flown through a cloud and I could still see the earth.  I was looking down at NYC.  That was awesome to realise.

 

At 15,635 ft and going up!  It's 11:30 pm in Dusseldorf (our destination and it will take us "6" hours to get there.  It's 4:30 pm in New Jersey/ Pennsylvania at this point.  This is when I stopped trying to figure out how long the flight actually was and surrendered to the surreality of moving forward in time.

 

At this point, Mad Jack shook his hand out of my white grip and told me how to use the TV on the back of the seat in front of me.  There was a TV on the seat in front of me.  Why don't I fly everywhere?  750 a ticket.  That's right.

 

There are clouds!  Clouds out of the window!  Holy Fucking Christ!  A bed of clouds.  Miles of clouds.  Like a soft puffy ocean.  The people by the window are totally wasting the view. This is awesome.

 

We're going 505 miles mph and we're at 20,000 ft.

 

Here's a story idea: someone dies on her first flight and sees those clouds as she falls.  She wishes only to share this view with more people.  Some God saves her so she can do this.

 

At this point, I realise that as a society we are being controlled by entertainment.  For example, when we first sat down, nearly everyone on the plane put on headphones and started watching the TVs on the back of their seats.  They started watching a movie or TV show and missed realising we were flying.  Isn't that cool to anyone else?  Every single other passenger is watching TV.  Okay, maybe 1 in 5 is reading a newspaper or a book.  Okay.   I counted our row; 3 in 8 are not watching TV.  3 in 8 is not 1 in 5, but you know what, fuck it.  I'm flying.

 

So glad I have Mad Jack.  He's using me as an arm rest right now, but he's kept me sane on this whole thing.  We moved to Ireland with one month's notice and his Aunt died right at the end of it.  It's been tough.  Now he's watching a sitcom called "Modern Family" and really enjoying it.  He has a cutest, most awkward laugh ever.  Like it has to fight to escape.

 

More about the clouds.  There a beach of them.  I'm so excited.  I think I'll watch a kid's show when I get bored.

 

Watched "The Lorax".  It was really cute.  Had some surprisingly good dialogue.  Didn't need the musical numbers.

 

We are now going 39,000 ft.  I am over a place called St. Johns.  About to go over the ocean.  I have no idea what time it is in NJ now.  I'm not tired yet, but I've got a fucked up sleep schedule so that's not saying much.

 

In between movies, I listen to "Americana" on the plane's radio.  The first song is "Summertime" (as in the Ella Fitzgerlad and Louis Armstrong Jazz song), but it's being sung by some people with heavy European accents and is techno.  Nifty setting though.   I enjoy it.

 

By the way, Loudon Wainwright counts as American Country.  Just saying, Rufus Wainwright's father...who I'm fairly certain is Canadian, counts as country.  I love the rest of the world.

 

There's a really cool song that has the lyrics "Tells another story like I don't speak French."  I want to find that one.

 

I watched "The Hunger Games" (another surprisingly good film.  Not as heavy and overly-dramatic as you'd think) and "The Avengers" (which is still awesome).  And we were there.

 

I got scared landing and I think I might have accidentally severed Mad Jack's leg by gripping it, but he got better.

 

When we got off the plane in Dusseldorf, Germany it was sunrise.

I got a thing with buildings and clouds.

For the first half hour or so, Mad Jack and I were still awake and sane.  Well, as sane as Mad Jack and I ever get.  We did normal Capt. and Mad things.  In the bathroom, I found a pretty watch with diamonds in it and found the owner.  Mad helped someone find their gate.  We got a coffee and diet coke and watched the news... which was in German.  So it was more us guessing what the stories were and trying to whisper so the people who could speak German weren't offended.

 

Then weird things started happening.
For example: those of you who know Mad Jack, know even on no sleep he is not the grumpy sort.  Here's a picture to prove that reality shifted a little:

But you know it's him because of the diet coke!

We went out into the airport and started having what I think are waking dreams.  We took pictures so that we knew what was real and what wasn't.

 

For example: I thought we had gotten lost somehow and wandered into a mall.  There was a "parfume" shop across the way which severely scented everything and that was messing with my head.

Are we at Stockton?

And then this happened:

 

I understand now that is was a really nifty ad for the car, but at the time I was so disorientated and dazed that I thought it was real.  Maybe a mummified King Kong hand.  Obviously the thing to do was to take a picture of it and make a face to try to give some sense of justice to my confusion.  Also, I still have no idea what I am carrying.  One is my coat, but the thing in the bag I don't know what that is.

 

After this, we went back to our gate and sat down and waited for the plane, lest anything else bizarre should happen.  Mad Jack fell asleep, but I continued in weird daze.  Nodding off and waking up and thinking I was still dreaming because everyone was speaking another language and everything was written in funny letters.

 

When we got onto our next plane at 10:30 Germany, I was grateful because it meant I could sleep without fear of missing the plane.  I remember the experience the way people remember being an audience member of a Japanese game show.  I was amused and confused at the same time.  The flight attendants were German, but they spoke with German and Irish accents.  So they were completely incomprehensible.  I didn't understand a word that was happening.  They were aware of this though and had voice overs for the safety announcements while the attendants mimed what we should do.  They did this thing that looked like a cross between modern dance and safety demonstration.

I spent most of the flight looking out the window.  I was confused when we were flying over the ocean, because I couldn't figure out if it was the earth or sea.  Then a giant tanker swam by.  It looked like a toy.

Then I ate something called muesli which I gagged at but kept eating.  The milk was not milk I realised later, but some kind of soy product.  I don't think they were meant to be mixed...

 

When I woke up from this un-deserved acid dream, I was in Dublin airport.  By the way, it was only 10 am in Ireland.  I time-travelled.

 

Mad Jack was interrogated by the Irish about being a student.  I passed through without any trouble and was vaguely aware that it was my job to get our bags and find the bus to Galway.  I set out.

 

I followed the mob of people who were mostly India and Bangali.  We went to the check-bag wheeling ovals of destiny things.  For some reason, I always thought that was something the movies made up because they looked cool.  It seems so inefficient to trust people to take their own bags and not steal someone elses.  Anyways, after watching the same white bag with polka dots go around three or four times, I realised that my bags were not coming from Istanbul.  They were coming from Dusseldorf and I had a different wheel of destiny than the people around me.  So I turned around and tried to find mine.

I saw my bag right away, five minute later at a completely cleared-out wheeling oval of destiny.  Mad Jack's was no where to be seen though.  I searched for it.  I guess.  I walked around and tilted my head and then walked in the other direction and tilted my head some more.  Then my walking and head tilting worked and I found his bag stuck in the oval end of the wheel of destiny.  Somehow magically suspended over the track a few inches and remaining in place.

Immediately, I realised that if something were to push the bag it would fall back onto the belt and I could get at it easily.  If I had been sane, I would have put my suitcase down on the belt.  If I had been a little saner, I would have used my backpack which was study enough to dislodge the stuck bag but less heavy than the suitcase.

But this was a day of time-travelling, undeserved acid trips, and giant monkey paws... I was not sane.  So I took off my back pack, my coat, and tied my braids back (I thought this was the safest thing I could do) and I jumped on the belt. And by jump I mean crawled very carefully.  I have troubles with escalators and this was like that on crack.

On hands and knees, I was carried slowly to the jammed bag and I didn't even have myself steady enough to grab it.  I just kinda bumped and it fell onto the belt with me.  I pushed it off and crawled off myself and got my stuff together.

I felt very accomplished for my efforts.

Moral of the trip: Sleep is neccesary to stop you thinking enormous monkies are real and from getting on luggage belts when there are other very obvious options.