The microscopic water cup, cardboard food and the funny teddy

My first memories of flying in a plane was when I went to Singapore with my family when I was 12. And since I have a bit of a bad memory all I remember is the train ride of the Sentosa island old artifacts and how dad made us miss the bus for the dolphin show. And suffice to say they are some pretty bad memories. My most recent air plane trip memory, which was two years ago, was when I came to US for a brand new awesome life, which I thought it would be.

My sister had come for the summer and my mom didn't think she needed to come with me when my sister was going too. So I had booked my ticket and after a long long list of things I should and should not do, which had me scared half to death and gripping my ticket and visa like a lifeline, I boarded the emirates plane which would take us to Dubai air port and then there we had to take another plane. And I was so excited too.

The plane ride was exciting. I loved the take off and the rush it gave off, after having a short squabble with my sister for the window seats we agreed to switch when we took the other plane. And we departed at night so my sister couldn't see anything!! One highlight of the trip!

The plane seats were comfy, and I got a funny teddy bear with the Emirates emblem from the air hostess for reasons I cannot fathom since they were given only for kids and I was eighteen tears old! And there was the little handy pack with the sleeping mask and toothbrush. It was fine, and I didn't see anything my sister had complained about when she had told me about the twelve hour plane trip. There was the lovely television with the set of movies (some of which I liked!), and I was tired so I slept.

I woke up when I had something poking on my side which turned out to be my seat neighbor who wanted to go to the toilet; after silently cursing him for waking me from my comfy sleep which I couldn't go back to I turned to the Television to watch 'Independence Day'. After watching it I saw the air hostesses going around with a set of files-type things which she gave to each of the passengers of her own side. I looked to the other side of my seat neighbor to where my sister was and saw her drooling on her blanket, fast asleep; sighing at the utter uselessness of my supposed airplane tour guide I turned back to the television to watch another movie.

After ten to fifteen minutes later the air hostess approached the row I was in and gave me the file type thing which I recognized as a small menu, and turned to wake our sleeping seatmate. I remember that when I read the menu the names sounded really fancy, with both Asian and western food in it. And during that time I was ever ready to abandon the Asian food I was used to and eat the western food; and I had to regret my choice of some sort of weird named food which came in a too small plate with a microscopic (In my opinion) water cup. The food was horrible, I couldn't even finish a third of it when my ever brainy sister piped up and said that it was all I was going to get as a major meal for the rest of the six hours. And after finishing the water, which didn't even count as one gulp, I finished the food and asked for a lager cup of water. And the pretty air hostess said that it the only size of water cups they had!!

Frustrated at the manipulating I had gone through (ignoring my sister who had ordered an Asian dish) and finish the second microscopic glass of water I settled back to sleep through the rest of the flight. And I slept through it and we arrived at Dubai where we had to wait for two hours for our next flight, we explored the Dubai Duty free shops. Both of us had never been to Dubai, my sister had taken the Heathrow airport on both occasions she had traveled to US, and we were amazed by the size of it, and had minor attacks focused on to our wallets when we saw the prices too. But after raiding a chocolate shop, and then after I ran off to a dessert shop I saw (it had such PRETTY cakes!!) and limiting the wallet money for the next airport's Duty Free shop we readied ourselves to the next plane ride.

It was just six hours and this time I chose the Asian rice dish which tasted like the microwavable rice they sometimes have in supermarkets and tastes like a weird mixture of cardboard and salt, I gobbled it up and mourning again at the sight of the microscopic water cup I went to watch a couple of movies to kill time. I watched a total of three movies when the steward announced that we were going to touch down. After experiencing the sort of thrill of the plane speeding we landed on John F.Kennedy Airport.

And there I witnessed what exactly my sister was complaining about long distance flights. We had missed our flight to Kansas city airport and after letting the panic overrun me for minute I let my sister handle all the work (it was my first time to the US) we scheduled another flight to somehow get to Kansas. The problem was we had to have two more stops at Chicago and Cincinnati to get to Kansas. Even though I was thrilled at the motion of more speeding in an airplane, my sister was not. Grumbling that we were going to miss our ride to the university we sat down on the chairs and waited.

After getting to Chicago, and getting sneered at by a guard because I hadn't known to take off my socks at the checking booth, we left to Cincinnati and then to Kansas. And it was three in the morning. And to our greatest relief our ride had stayed behind even though we were an hour late. And our next problem came when my sister's bags had apparently decided to stay behind in the Chicago air port and one of my suitcases had busted open. At that time both of us were tired, hungry and very angry. But our exhaustion of two days of flight had taken a toll on us and we didn't have the energy to squabble. So we dragged my suitcases to the car and getting the word of the nice old gentleman at the flight baggage office that my sister's bags were going to get delivered as soon as they arrived the next day we went off to the new world; or at least I did.