The 24 hour flight journey

Starting this post from 30,000 feet above the air in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I have officially made it to the Sydney airport after nearly 24 hours of travel. Much to my mother’s surprise, but mostly with a lack of awareness of the checked bag rules, I only brought two bags: a 43 pound suitcase (beat 50 without even trying!) and a backpack with computers - so hopefully this gets me through the month!

The flight had two legs:

• JFK à LAX (~7 hours, longer than the five I thought it would be)
• Two hour layover at LAX
• LAX à SYD (~15 hours)

Surviving the flights

The lucky gal I am, I have had middle seats for both of my flights, which is about as terrible as it sounds. On the first plane ride, I was sitting in between two overweight men. One was quiet, while the other was a 40 year-old man on Tinder. Anytime he finished a snack or opened a wrapper, he threw the wrapper on my feet, because apparently that is acceptable.

The layover went by fast, quickly boarding a huge 777 to Sydney with 3-4-3 rows. The flight was runway delayed for an hour due to technical issues, semi-concerning before a 15-hour flight. It finally took off at 12 am PST / 3 am EST / 7 pm Australia time.

I was able to fall asleep for six hours, and woke up to some of the most excruciating knee pain I have felt in my entire life. Waiting for my neighbor to wake up, I got up to stretch. The bathroom aisles have landings with snack food and plenty of space to stand, stretch, with many people just hanging out there doing exercises. Feeling semi-accomplished, I got back to my seat, to then learn that it was 1 am Sydney time and there was still another eight hours left.

More TV and another two hour nap later, I finally gave in to the in flight wifi, putting me with three hours left of flying.  It took 30 minutes for any email or pages I wanted to visit (Gmail, Outlook, Facebook, or news to load), so I wouldn’t recommend doing this. The knee pain persisted with both legs falling asleep, basically making me stumble to the bathroom.

The food and snacks were very good and carried me through the night - being served a quinoa salad for dinner, a hot pocket snack + gelato at midnight Australia time, and a full breakfast in the morning. The plane also had these phenomenal Brookside Crunchy Clusters being served, which is the same brand that sells dark chocolate acai berries at Costco.

Staying entertained

Now that I’ve exited the plane and am reflecting on what even happened the past 24 hours, I’ve:

• Watched 4 movies (Snowden, Bad Moms, Frozen and Like Crazy)
• Watched 8 episodes of Scandal
• Tagged 2 months of photos and cleared out photos & videos on my phones
• Went through my entire work inbox and finished two projects
• Read all the articles bookmarked on Pocket
• Probably more TV than I watched in most of 2016

Now off to go meet my host for the next two weeks!