Only seven hours on a plane...

Every time I fly out of the Bradley terminal at LAX I struggle to find my check in counter. It makes me feel lost and stupid. The check in section of the terminal is not that big yet I wander back and forth trying to find where the counter is. After walking up to the A section of the terminal twice, I finally found the place in the monitor telling me the exact check in counter (A23-30 or something like that).

I checked in about 3 hours before my flight, very early -- which is quite uncommon for me...I'm usually getting called on the loudspeakers as I run to the gate right before they close the doors and when I finally board the plane every one gives me an evil look...or I just miss my flight. But today I learned that checking in early pays off! The lady at the counter was not rushed and was relaxed. She weighed my huge backpacks and it passed the carry on requirements -- 8.8kg for a two-week trip! She then told me how much my current seat would suck, because I would have a wall behind my seat and the seat wouldn't recline and she offered to change it. She said, "you're lucky today's flight is not full so I'm going to give you an aisle seat where no one has been assigned to yet." I smiled and she added, "if you are very lucky, no one will get assigned or changed to any of those seats."

Well guess what?! I AM really lucky! I used those four seats like a bed: I laid, I tossed, I turned, I daydreamed and even had a nightmare (not gonna explain the nightmare).

It was a very pleasant flight. Except for this woman who claimed that she is a New Yorker and kept changing seats and sharing information that the average passenger didn’t care about. She was a nice lady... but a wee-bit loud.

Seven hours after taking off, Tahiti's warm and humid embrace surrounded me. In 3 seconds I was covered in sweat -- it felt like I was back in Puerto Rico for a second. I did all the passport stamping and you know, all that paperwork you fill out when you visit another country. Luckily my lovely host, a delightful French woman, came to pick me up and gave me a beautiful tiare flower necklace. I love the smell of it! I love the smell so much that right now I’m holding the necklace up to my nose breathing in its lovely scent. The tiare flower is the Tahitian gardenia and I LOVE the smell of gardenias!

See the picture…that’s after I wore the necklace and smelled it for about an hour.

Until my next internet connection...

#tahiti #tiareflower #tahitiangardenia