Kate’s brother was graduating from university, and then one week later her cousin was getting married. Apparently graduations are a much bigger deal in America than they are anywhere else, and so she had promised to come back. Plus she hadn’t seen her family in a year. And then there was the fact that I wanted to see the US. It was going to mean my first plane ride. I was a little scared. Mice were not meant to fly. If we had been meant to fly then we would have been given wings. And wouldn’t that be cool! But, I guess humans were not born with wings either, and they were flying everywhere. Kate told me it was more likely to die in a car wreck than in a plane crash. Transatlantic plane tickets are expensive, and while usually I get my own tickets for buses and trains, this time I was perfectly willing to chip in for one ticket and share a seat with Kate. She said she could put me in her hand luggage, and then once we were on board I could sit in the seat pocket. The advantages of being small. I’m sure you all wish that you could stow aboard in someone’s hand luggage.
Being us though, we were not going to do this the easy way. Oh no. Kate had left a suitcase at a friend’s house in London the year before, since she wanted to have less stuff to lug around. So we thought that we could spend a night in London and pick it up. We planned to take a plane from Istanbul to London with easyjet, and then the next day take a plane to New York, wait four hours, and then take another plane to her family who live in North Carolina. However, it turned out Kate's friends were leaving the same day for Sweden, and so we would not be able to pick up the bag. They instead offered us tickets to a concert that night. But more about that in part II of this story.
Apparently planes are not like buses. You are not allowed to show up at the station and board 2 minutes before the bus leaves. For an international flight you must be at the airport two hours ahead of time. Two hours!! It seemed excessive to me. What could we possibly do for two hours? In addition, Istanbul has the worst traffic in the world, so we left two hours before that to get to the airport on time. Except the airport bus only took about an hour, and so we were left with three hours. The airport was full of people waiting. People waiting to check in for their flights. Maybe people waiting to pick up their friends. People waiting for their friends to check in for their flights. Children running around, adults sighing and running after them, other adults trying to ignore the children, people reading books, talking on their phones, opening their computers, and the occasional person who had gotten their late and was running around generally freaking out. We looked at the TV monitors, to learn that we were there an hour before we could check in for our flights. So we sat. And then we walked around. And then the strap on Kate’s hand luggage broke. “Dental floss” she said, and opened up her bag. Dental floss? I thought to myself. Out of her bag she brought dental floss and tweezers, and proceeded to thread the dental floss through the strap, and then through the loop on the bag. She repeated the process a few times, occasionally biting off a swear word, as the loop on the bag was very small. After tying a knot to make the girl guides proud, she stood up to test her bag. And it held. I will now add dental floss to my list of travel essentials, which also includes duct tape, safety pins. I think those three things can fix anything.
Surgery completed, we were able to check in for our flight. As Kate was the only passenger listed on the flight, she was the only one who got to check in. I loitered around the check in desk to wait for her. Away from here, the airport was a bit more scary. I’m not that tall after all, and most adults don’t seem to look down very much. And there were all these bags on wheels that they were wheeling after themselves, and didn’t not seem very concerned at all about running over some poor mouse. So I dodged the bags. And tried to avoid the children, as I was not feeling in the mood to have lots of children get excited over me. Kate came back soon, with her boarding pass and passport in hand.
“They let me keep my hand luggage” she said. “I was worried they were going to make me check it.”
“Let me see the boarding pass”
“Here you go”
Then it was time to go through security. Where they would x-ray everything. This was the hardest part of our plan. I couldn’t go in the hand luggage here. They would notice. Kate was wearing a very full skirt, and I curled myself into a very tight ball in the pocket. I'm not metal, after all, so I got through the metal detector without a problem. No one seemed to notice me, and we got through fine. Then came passport control. You don't need a ticket for this, and we were soon stamped out of Turkey. After security I sat on Kate's bag as we walked through the airport. Normally of course I don't hitch a ride, but I was intimidated by all the wheeled bags, and really didn't want to get run over.
We passed lots of shops on our way to the gate. And then we waited again. I was so happy when it was time to get on the plane. I put my ruck sack into Kate’s bag, got in myself and she zipped it up, mostly, leaving a bit of a gap so I could breathe. I hoped that the dental floss would hold. It was dark in the bag, and I'm not exactly sure what happened while I was in there. About twenty minutes later Kate whispered it was okay for me to come out. I hoped out onto a seat, and she put her bag in one of the overhead storage lockers. She had selected a window seat. Now we waited for everyone else to board. It was very full by the end – not one empty seat! We were sitting by two Turkish women who were going to the UK for the first time.
After everyone was on, the flight attendants walked up and down the aisles to make sure that all hand baggage had been properly stowed and that all seat backs were up. As the plane started to move – or taxi as Kate said, the flight attendants started to explain the safety features of the plane. They showed how to fasten the seat belt, how an oxygen mask would pop down from the ceiling if it was necessary, how there was a life vest under my seat in case of an emergency water landing, and pointed out the location of all the emergency exits. I felt much better after listening. And the best thing – the whole speech was in English. Then the noise from the engines increased and we were going faster and I held my breath, and a few seconds later we were airborne, with the ground falling away fast.
The view was amazing! I could see the Bosphorus and the princes' islands we had visited, and even the Hagia Sofia. The golden horn was there and the Kadikoy harbor. It was just like looking at a map! I stared out the window marveling at how the houses and steam ships were like toys. After passing Istanbul though, the plane passed through the clouds, and was soon above the clouds. Everything below looked white. And the clouds seemed to be so solid.
I turned my attention inward. Our plane had an aisle down the center and three seats on either side. Over head were lights telling us that smoking was not allowed, and that we were supposed to have our seat belts fastened. We had controls for the reading light, and also the vent blowing air. On the backside of the seat in front of us was a pocket with a magazine, and a safety information card. The magazine had a map of all the places easyjet flies, as well as a listing of the things available on board. It's a discount airline, Kate explained. So they don't give anything, even water, away for free.
Once the seat belt sign was turned off I walked to the back to explore the lavatory (fancy word for bathroom). It's so tiny and well organized. And then I realized what everyone else knows – flying is boring. Unless you are really lucky and there are no clouds, there is nothing to see out the window. You sit, and you wait for the flight to finish. I pulled out my book.
Four hours after we took off we landed in London Gatwick Airport. Because there was a two hour time difference, it was as if the flight had only taken two hours. That was exciting! This time they pulled up a jet bridge to the door, so that we could walk straight into the airport without any stairs. Because the flight was over I didn't have to hide in Kate's bag anymore and could walk. We had to go through passport control before we could leave the airport. For the first time, Kate and I had to split up. I went through the line for UK citizens, and she for visitors.
“Welcome home” the officer told me as he looked through my passport, and then loudly stamped it. And then I was back in the UK. Kate took a little while longer to get through the line, and then we departed to the lobby of the airport. I was starving, and couldn't wait to get some UK cheese! As I looked around all the shops were familiar, and everyone was speaking English. I have to admit I got a little teary. And then we saw a Sainsbury's (grocery store) and dashed inside for some cheese to celebrate my first flight.