Part I - The Plane to London
I arrived at the Knoxville airport at 10:00 in anticipation of my noon flight to O'Hare. Little did I know that the President also wanted to go to Chicago for Memorial Day, which delayed my flight an hour.
Then a storm hit Chicago. That delayed me another hour.
By the way, I was barely disturbed by all of this because I was busy saying Happy Birthday to my sister. (And of course "saying Happy Birthday" means discussing various philosophies of philanthropy.)
Finally, we take off just before 3:00. I arrive in plenty of my time for my next flight (thank goodness) and go to grab some food before I leave.
All of the seats in the food court were taken, so I sat by some random guy. Of course this guy (whose name, I later find out, is Nathan) happens to be one of the most interesting dude's I've ever met. He's a couple years older than me, has finished a stint in the Peace Corp, and is on his way to lead tours in the wilderness of Alaska.
We chatted about a few random topics, but the most interesting thing we talked about was his time in the Corp. He was stationed on a tiny island in the Pacific in the nation of Vanuatu. You know, the island chain northeast of Australia? Highest language density of any country in the world? Lead exporter of not-jack-squat?
Well congrats if any of this rings a bell, because I had never even heard the word "Vanuatu" until yesterday. However, after the picture he painted, it's definitely on the list of places to see before I die. From what I could understand the people are rather "primitive," but life there is awesome. You work everyday, but it's not work in the sense that you get up and slave away at projects which are dictated to you. It's work in the sense that your community depends on you to fish, plant, gather, build, etc. Work is just part of life and you do it because it's what needs to be done, not because you need the paycheck.
Oh and did I mention that Vanuatu is an island chain in the South Pacific? Which means it's absolutely beautiful. Apparently Nathan worked pretty regularly on the coral reefs off the island (aka went scuba diving) and collected clam specimens (aka took walks on the beach). Rough life.
After I finished my pizza we said farewell and I hopped on the plane to London.
As I approached my seat on the plane, I saw that my isle-sitting-neighbor (I had the window side) had already arrived. Tough luck for him, because not only do I need to reach my seat, but I need to get all arranged. I gotta take out my books, my iPod, store my overhead luggage, and cram my laptop bag under our feet. I proceed to do all of this with him standing in the isle looking rather irritated. Of course, the "under-seat storage" was unusually small for our seats and we couldn't fit both of our laptops, so he irately pulls out his bag and stuffs it in the overhead.
Well, the only lesson I learned from all of this was that it definitely pays to be "that guy." It turns out that if you make like a bad enough neighbor, people will just migrate away when the boarding ends, leaving you with two seats to lay down and sleep in. Sucker.
Oh, and this was the view from my seat at night.
On the left there is the North Star, aka Polaris. That really bright star on the right is the tip of the wing of the plane. (The three blurry things next to it are photo errors. They weren't there in real life.) What you're seeing is the 24 hour light on the North Pole in the summer. Even in the middle of the night (this had to be between 11pm-2am on the ground) there is a slight glow to the North. I could also make out three lighthouses off the east coast of Canada, but I couldn't get the pictures to turn out right.
Up next: 9 hours in England
