Leaving on a jet plane

I planned it so carefully, I would fly to m Uncle Jim’s in Connecticut and spend a week there, before flying on to Finland. I packed up my few meager possessions and waved goodbye to my family and boarded a plane. I was flying to JFK, where I would board a bus to take me to Connecticut, I felt so grown up and independent. I had never had to make my way through an airport without the assistance of a grown-up before. It was only me, I was all I had, and you know what? I did a pretty good job of taking care of myself. Once in Danbury I called my Uncle, and he drove to the bus station to pick me up.
The week I spent at my uncles was quiet and filled with anticipation. We went into Manhattan for a day, road the Staten Island ferry, I had a wonderful falafel sandwich. In the sandwich shop there was a poster of a huge red delicious apple, half of it looked like an apple, the other half the skyline of New York in the shape of an apple. Why is it called the big apple? And how many people like me long to take a bite? For as much as I have traveled since, this has been the only eight hours I spent in New York City. I have passed near it since, but never ventured in, but that is a story for another time.
Finally, it was Saturday, the day I would leave the US, on a really big plane. The song leaving on a jet plane ran through my head all day. My uncle Jim drove me to JFK, he dropped me off on the sidewalk, with a hug and my luggage. What was this? I was being left alone to figure this shit out? Okay so I had gotten my way off a plane and out of the airport by myself, I had never done the checking in by myself. Be brave little meer cat I tell myself as I make my way into the Finnair line. When I got up to the ticket counter, I was told by the lady there that I did not have a seat because I did not call 24 hours prior to confirm. Oh my god, my head spun this can’t be possible.
“That can’t be possible, I bought this ticket over a month ago! I didn’t know I needed to call and confirm the flight!” I cried.
“let me see what I can do.” Said she. And she clicked her keyboard. Click click click, sweat, sweat, sweat. What if she can’t find a seat, what am I going to do?
“okay miss bird, I found you a seat, Row 94E.”
thank god.
Well it turns out that row 94E was in the very back of the plane, in the middle of a row of five, so I had two people on either side of me. The rotary club had told us what flight to book, so the all the exchangees would be on the same flight, or one of two flights, one leaving from JFK for all the east coasters, and one leaving from San Francisco, for the west coasters. so when I got to the gate, there were dozens of young kids hanging around in rotary blazers. I was one of the few without one, as my club had not yet ordered me one. And we were all to have pins, that represented our state. I had little saguaros cactuses and “Arizona… HOT HOT HOT” pins I was handing out, and I collected some myself, even through I did not have a blazer to pin them on. Great, I was already an ill-equipped exchangee.
The first five hours of an eleven hour flight are fun. People are awake, we exchangees all bubbling with energy ran up and down the aisles, listening to each other’s stories and hopes for the year ahead, telling our own.
I had always heard the horrors of airplane food, but the meal was really not that bad. It was still hot, breaded chicken stuffed with ham, bread and cheese, fresh fruit, it was great! I would later have horrible airplane food, my first exposure, was undoubtedly the best.
The flight attendants gave us all these little Finnair goodie bags, they had a coloring book, a pilot wings pin, and a little toy Finnair van. I think I still have the van.
The second six hours of an eleven hour flight are brutal. Everyone has calmed down, and we’re trying to sleep, and I had two people on either side of me that I got to try and crawl over to go to the bathroom.
Well, you can never get good sleep on an airplane, and landing the next morning was a haze, all of us exchangees were herded like cattle by a rotary representative, who met us at the gate, through customs and off to a little bus. I was in Finland, and they were taking us to a week long language camp in Karku.