My Africa Trip - 1

Before I begin. I'd like to state that a lot of this was written while sick, exhausted, possibly delusional, and in an extreme state of duress and should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. If I offend anyone personally with what is written here, I'm sorry that the truth(or my bad joking) is so painful for you.

Also, we took lots of pictures, but because Katie is still stuck in Africa due to international terrorism (possibly Mexicans also) and its affects on our immigration law, I'll have to add them to the posts later.

5/29/11

We're on our way to Kenya, Africa. The flight from San Diego to New York was among the worst of my life. Because we were sitting in front of the emergency exit, our seats weren't allowed the usual 4 inches of reclining comfort. I felt I had to bend steel to tilt my chair back 2 inches. The old lady next to me couldn't stop praising her own intelligence and sharing her ageless wisdom with me and the other older talker on the other side of me. After removing my ear buds 9 times to hear what she was asking, and refusing to look up from my kindle, I would have figured her vast 'New York intellect' could have taken the hint. They were nice enough but I was far too tired, hungover, and uncomfortably smashed to attempt any necessary credibility checks one usually needs before believing such unending streams of unwanted stranger advice.

My friend Jeffrey F. had a great idea for a rating system for passengers. If you smell, are too fat for the seat, or like to force strangers to listen to your inane prattling then you get rated down and are forced to sit with other low rated passengers. Read your reviews, discover what a burden your existence is on others. I'm all for it. I dare not hope people might change themselves and actually improve, but at least corral the narcissists together and put me with the thin, narcoleptic mutes.

If the TSA was on there I'd have to give them a good rating this time. I got lucky and they kept their filthy ape hands off my genitals. Seriously, they're all hideous. I've never met a single attractive TSA agent. They're all mouth-breathing, molester, Nazis. I swear, if there was even a single attractive TSA agent I would apologize with dinner and all the extensive body cavity searches she'd want.

The New York to Brussels leg of the trip was better. I got an aisle seat and actually slept some of my hangover off. I'm pretty disoriented with the time though. Apparently it's about 1 AM San Diego time, but about 10 AM Brussels time.

I feel like we've been travelling for years. I'm pretty sure rats put into relatively sized enclosures start eating each other. My knee froze for an hour, my back aches like an open knife wound, and I'm still not fully hydrated again. I swear there's more moisture in space. I woke up and my eyes were plastered shut like someone sneezed on my eyes while I slept and they dried that way. I went to take a dump and it literally got stuck. I had to pinch it off the powdery failure turd and push the rest back in. Seriously, I wish I was joking.

We're waiting for our last plane to board. All the vending machines only accept Euros, and the ATM only gives US Dollars. I did some rough conversion rate calculations and the plastic cup of 4% alcohol containing beer costs roughly twice that of a ballpark beer. I'd probably have paid it if I wasn't sure they'd reject my card after waiting in the 30 minute line. If this delayed flight doesn't leave soon, we may jack up the scheduled stop for repairs. I'm afraid to ask what else could suck about air travel. If I don't see some grateful smiling faces, I may be arrested for punching a starving African child in the face.

I know. I'm a terrible human being. Air travel is just so much worse than it needs to be.