Flying: The Good, The Bad, and the Ahh

I recently purchased a plane ticket and shortly after started thinking about the whole process of flying, which of course lead to an idea for a blog that "shockingly" is not about food or wedding planning.  Anyway, flying isn't my favorite thing in the world, but I don't hate it.  I mean the red eye, the bathrooms and food leave something to be desired--actually, the food on Aer Lingus wasn't bad, and I don't work for them and am not making any money to say that, I just actually found their food decent when I flew them a couple of years ago.  The food on the plane in Iceland was decent too.  And the reason I don't like taking a red eye is because I cannot fall asleep--even when I am exhausted, talk about annoying!  Anyway, the first time I flew I was 9-years-old.  My family and I were going to Disney World.  I was SO excited about the trip.  I had a calendar and I was counting down the days and everything, come to think of it, not much has changed since then.  Now instead of Xing days off my calendar when I am excited about a trip, I just count them and keep track in my mind or ocas on the computer lol.  I was nervous about flying for the first time, but my uncle tried to reassure me that all would be fine--and it was though the flight home was rather bumpy, but my brother and I thought it felt just like being on another ride at Disney. I still get nervous flying alone sometimes. The first time I flew alone was not too long after 9-11 so I was quite nervous then, but I made it safely to my destination.  There were only 39 passengers on the plane, which was odd, I hadn't been on a plane that small ever.  Little did I know I'd be on one smaller than that a few months later when I went skydiving (yes, I went skydiving, I even have a video and pictures to prove it) or a couple of years later when I was in Belize (a 14 passenger plane, really?!  yikes!--it was much better than the boat ride though! ugh, even thinking about that boat ride makes me feel blah, that was pretty much the only part of the trip I didn't like, but I'm getting off topic).  So yeah, flying has its annoying parts, but it has its good parts too.  Get from point a to point b in 1 hour instead of 12?  Yes, please!  (Though I'd prefer NOT to go broke doing it, exactly how many surcharges are there on tickets now?)  I love traveling with my friends and my fiancé, but on the few instances where I have to travel alone, there can be something peaceful about it--IF you do NOT get stuck in the middle seat, especially when you are sitting between two people who know each other and want to talk across you for half the flight, but don't want to switch seats with you.  Several times when I've flown in recent years, I've been lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me.  It's kind of nice to hide in a book or put on ear phones and listen to music or watch a movie or write in a journal--because the only time I seem to journal any more is when I am on vacation-and not have any distractions and just go ahh.  You just kind of put the world on hold for a couple of hours,  And usually if I do fly alone it's because I'm going to visit a friend or relative I'm excited to see so it's nice to have something to look forward to at the end of a long ride.  Of course this all goes out the window if the weather is crappy and you hit turbulence or if you have to go the bathroom and the line is LONG and let's not even get started on delays and lost luggage, but instead of worrying about that, I think I'll just charge my ipod and grab a good book for my next trip.  :-)