Things I have learned from my amazing trip to Turks and
Caicos.
Always take a credit card no matter if your parents say it’s
a bad idea. How else will you pay for drinks or snacks or Wi-Fi on the plane?
(Note: if you make friends with the flight
attendant while being seated in the exit row, you sometimes get free drinks.
Just saying…)
Always charge your phone, even if it is just for 10 minutes.
I tell you this because when coming home from paradise, our flight landed in Charlotte
where it just so happened to be snowing. Now, having 2 hours until my next
flight home, you would have thought I would have found a nice cozy spot next to
an outlet right? Wrong. I had just enough juice left in my phone to last me the
2 hour wait for an hour flight back to Pittsburgh. And that would have been
fine if dear old southern Charlotte knew how to deal with snow. I say this
because even though it continued to snow, our flight was never delayed, not by
a minute. But oh don’t worry, we got onto the plane and proceeded to sit on the
runway for 3 and half hours while it continued to snow outside. I used my phone
to call my parents various times and tried unsuccessfully to download and buy TV
shows and movies via iTunes and Amazon Instant Play. Guess what? You need Wi-Fi
for those things to happen. Guess what again? Airplanes don’t use Wi-Fi if the
pane is under 100 feet. Curse you Internet Gods!! So this called for a bit of
creativity on my part to keep myself from going insane. Thankfully, I had the
window seat or this would have been a more miserable story. However, I managed
to remember that I had Netflix (Bud you are a freaking lifesaver!!!) on my
phone and it works without Wi-Fi. The older gentlemen next to me, with the help
of subtitles while I had headphones in, managed to watch two episodes of Doctor
Who before my phone got to 10% battery left. I wanted to make sure I had enough
power to be able to text my parents when I got home since it would be late. But
oh don’t you fret friend, we watched those two episodes and still did NOT take
off yet. Thankfully I am a music fiend and still carry around an iPod along
with my iPhone and could watch about 40% of The Devil Wears Prada. Finally, we
were taking off after having to deice the plane for 20 minutes. Mid flight, I turned
on my Kindle and continued to read Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter for the
rest of the duration of the flight. The runway had a good 2 inches of snow on
it but we landed anyway. See that Charlotte, not afraid of snow and airplanes
together. But god did that cold air make me yearn for the beaches we just left.
Anyway, Lesson learned here: always charge all of your devices even if it is
only for 8 minutes because only two episodes of Doctor Who are never enough.
Magazines over books-I am an avid reader and a huge fan of
both actual books and e-books. I always have my kindle with me. But I found
that short articles are better for the short attention span when reading on a
raft in the middle of a pool. Vanity Fair and Time proved to have the best stories
if you ask me.
Always bring kid friendly snacks: I am always around kids on
flights. Never right next to me, no, always freaking behind me kicking my chair
or shoving their tray table into the back of my seat. Not fun at all. BUT, if
you have treats, (mind you I always ask their parents first) to share with the
kiddos, it kinda shuts them up and is a bargaining tool to keep them from
kicking your seat.
Neck pillow: Get one and always bring it. Looks ridiculous,
but soo worth the investment.
