Newark

I made it to Newark okay. Now I know why international planes take extra time to clean. They're a lot bigger than domestic planes. Instead of three seats on one side, an aisle and three seats on the other side it was two seats by the window, an aisle, four seats, another aisle and two more seats by the opposite windows. Everyone got their own, albeit old and grainy screens. There were a couple different things to watch and games to play. You could even shop on the plane. Originally I was seated by a (I'm guessing) late middle aged woman who seemed a little not-all-there. I walked up to her and said hello and she just looked at me for a minute before she moved aside to let me into my seat. They finished boarding and there were empty seats everywhere. The lady next to me moved up to the next set of two seats and I spread out a little. I tried watching something, but got bored really quickly. I played Blackjack for a while, but that didn't entertain me for very long either. I ended up using the extra space to try and make it more comfortable to sleep.

Becase of the cleaning and people being slow about boarding, we were a little late getting in, but since I had a 7 hour layover, it wasn't a big deal. I got off the plane and headed to the gate that my boarding pass said I needed to go to. I spent a while just collapsed in a chair trying to decide if I was hungry and just letting my mind drift. It was noon and my flight didn't leave until 7:40 pm so it wasn't showing on the departure boards. I ended up getting thirsty and going in search of a Coke. I thought about getting something to eat, but I wasn't hungry. I played with my computer for a while but the wi-fi options were not promising. There was an unprotected network my computer couldn't connect to, AndroidAP and Boingo. I already knew that Boingo was a rip off after Houston. They only let me have 45 minutes for free (which is why the Houston post wasn't up yesterday when I wrote it) before they kicked me off and everything went super slow. AndroidAP worked really well for a little while but then it just disappeared. My computer couldn't find it anymore. I gave up and went to sleep. I explored a little at some point (it's all gotten jumbled in my head) but didn't find anything too interesting to look at. I found a more complete departure board and saw that there was only one flight to Shannon posted that day and it was leaving at 7:25, not 7:40 like my pass said and from C134 instead of C71. But, one of the airlines it flashed with the posting was Continental and 25, which was my flight number. After waiting a couple more hours and confirming that on other boards, I wandered out that way.



My actual gate, once it was showing my flight.



Looking back towards where I ate.

When I got to C134 the gate was still full of people waiting to go to San Francisco at 5:45. C135 shared the seating area and their flight at 5 to Orange County was way late boarding and so was San Francisco. Around 6 I talked to Griff and he told me I needed to eat something. He made me want a hamburger so I went in search of one. No luck so I settled for terriyaki chicken, steamed vegetables and rice. It was hard balancing my food and drink with my two coats and two bags and scarf. There was a pushy foreign lady who ordered after I did and jumped the line of people waiting for their food to grab one. I ended up sitting next to her and the guy in the eating area. They were kind of loud. Once I got down eating  I went back over to my gate. I found empty seats and pulled out my camera. I took a couple picture of my gate and one of my panda hat and then I settled down to start writing. I got a couple of sentences in before Professor Petersen found me. I'd been keeping my eyes open for her all day, but I was starting to wonder since I hadn't seen them yet. She sat down with me and we talked about the holidays and Bend and family and Harry Potter and where we wanted to go once we got to Europe. I like her a lot and I'm looking forward to taking her class. I'm glad she found me. It made me feel a little better to know someone else was going the same place as me.

My gate.

7 pm came and went and we still hadn't started boarding. I didn't get on the plane until 7:30, five minutes after we were supposed to have taken off. It was supposed to be a full flight so I expected to be squished into my seat. I was two rows from the back of the plane. It wasn't as big as the one I'd flown to Newark in, but the individual screens were much nicer. I sat down in the window seat because I was the first of the three in my row to get there. A little while later an elderly man (I think he was Irish, but I couldn't be sure and I never got up the guts to ask) was moved to my row in the aisle seat (apparently he had the wrong seat twice before). No one came to sit between us. Until we were actually in the air, I was sure someone was going to appear and sit there. It was nice to have the extra seat. The elderly man put his carry on under that seat instead so he could have somewhere to put his feet and I put my coats and hat and scarf into the seat so I could have my lap free. We finally took off probably around 8 pm.

My panda hat, mentioned in the Houston blog post.