Leg Room?!

I made it! But at what cost? 36 hours of flying, waiting a bunch, getting on a longer flight that decides to take the long way around, waiting a bunch more, getting on a shorter flight, and I'm just a grumpy, smelly, potato that didn't appreciate such a day starting with an alarm set to 05:15.

That said, Economy class felt a little bit less crap this time round than it usually does. All the long haul flights were on B789's, and my seat ... well, at first I thought that I must have gotten the wrong seat. I was preparing myself for something significantly more cramped, uncomfortable, and awful. I checked my seat number 5 times, not believing that this was the same "economy class" that I had grown up with and hated so far. And the cherry on the cake: for all four flight legs, my neighboring seat was free. And you better believe I took advantage of that for sleeping.

That said, I was continually waiting for the other shoe to drop. I kept on breezing through security without a single bag check, and practically no wait times. The flights were staying on time. I had space. I could feel karma's breath on the back of my neck. The whole time bracing for her bite when I was watching people looking critically at the windshield of my next plane.

The worst part was presumably that things slowed down a bit upon arriving in Europe. The security checkpoint in the last transit airport had only one x-ray machine operating and that was pulling over so many bags for additional checks that the three people dissecting those bags were too overwhelmed and causing the entire system to block up for a bit. At the final destination airport there was no staff for unloading the cargo containers and putting it on the conveyor belt to reach us. And the rental car took half an hour to work through the two people who arrived before me. But I don't think that that was enough to balance things out.

And then things started moving up again once I managed to escape from all the aviation. I managed to drive without immediately crashing or panicking anyone else. We managed to find the welcome reception. The heating was definitely working. Plus, there was a hammock. I may have spent several hours in this hammock ...

But that doesn't mean that I will get to enjoy the slow life from here on. Family regards half a day as enough recovery, and has been busily making plans for all kinds of big celebrations. And for some reason, none of those plans seem to involve me continuing to stay in this hammock ...