Now I am no travel expert but I have been to some pretty unusual and awesome places, let me say again for people who have not heard it before; I am not rich, at least not yet but I do think happiness is buying a plane ticket and travelling to a great destination. So even though I am not rich yet I have experienced happiness and let me tell you there is nothing that can compare to or adequately describe this feeling. I have had some great experiences and met some pretty interesting people on my travels and I plan to share it with you. Maybe you will laugh, maybe you will cry or maybe you will feel compelled to save some money and do what I do, pick a destination, buy a ticket and live like there is no tomorrow.
I love travelling well not exactly the plane ride sometimes that can be tedious; I just like arriving at the destination, especially if the arrival is thousands of miles away from the departure. I have never flown first class well except for the time when a lesbian tried to seduce me and I had to be hidden in first class but that is a different story. I cannot afford a first class ticket and even if I could I do not know if I would waste money to purchase one, we all leave at the same time and we all arrive at the same time. The only difference is those in first class get to go on and get off the plane before the others. I must admit though that there are sometimes I envy these people the extra leg room or the nice things they get up front. That is why often times I like to hit them with my bag as I am passing, then I will smile sweetly and say “ oh my God I am so sorry” when I am really not sorry, serves you right to want to go in first. I especially do his to the ones who turn up their nose while I am passing looking at me struggling with my bags like a peasant.
The longest I have ever flown for is two and a half days to get from Jamaica to Malaysia, just remembering this experience makes me want to lay down and cry. What made it worst was that my period was just about to begin, fyi I am one of those people who have horrible periods, I know a few of you women who can relate. Some of you may think I am an alien for saying this but I hate the smell of coffee, it has this awful nauseating smell that makes me just turn up my nose and want to gag. During my period it gets worst I smell it and I instantly want to faint, I want to throw up and I get headaches. You do not want to feel like this sitting in a cramped space between two people on a eleven hour plane ride; on those long flights the air hostess will pass fifty times asking if you want coffee or tea and it seems everybody always ask for coffee except for me. There are times I want to scream “ for God sakes stop serving fracking coffee” but I don’t because my mother grew me up as a lady;and of course I do not want them to think I have gotten crazy and lock me in an asylum upon arriving so I sit and suffer in silence and in my mind I curse all the evil people around me who sit and drink the nasty looking liquid in contentment.
On one of these flights which lasted fifteen hours, yes you read right fifteen hours; I was the only black person on board and as you can imagine people stared. So I just wanted to be left to myself but when my period is upon me aside from wanting to throw up all the time I tend to also want to use the bathroom quite often. Not just to do number one but also number two, I sat in the window seat beside an old German lady and her husband and I can bet by the end of the ride they hated me. Almost every half an hour I had to mumble “excuse me”
to visit the loo, sometimes it hurt my soul to have to shake them awake just to pass, it got so bad that I offered to take the aisle seat but they just smiled and told me it was ok. Those two old people with the strange name that I cannot remember were really wonderful, I would have liked very much if they were my grandparents. I can bet they are the type of grandparents that give you loads of money and food when you go to visit them, not like my grandmother who if you ask to borrow a hundred Jamaican dollars ( one usd). She will start to tell you how she moved from Manchester to city Kingston when she was sixteen and how hard she had to work, by the time the story is finished, you are no longer interested in the money and you feel ashamed that you didn’t begin to work at sixteen. Well let me get back to the story, so there I was having to go to the bathroom all the time, fyi the bathroom was down a flight of stairs thanks to Lufthansa huge planes (they are literally the best airlines I have ever flown with, try them!) and the lines for the bathroom were quite long, so when you went inside you didn’t wish to stay too long for fear of them knowing you are doing a number two nor do you wish to leave a scent. Therefore what I did was wait until I really had to go then I would rush into the line and as I arrived inside the bathroom it would just come out. Of course I had a body splash that I put inside my bosom so when I was finished I took it out and sprayed it around so the person going after me wouldn’t come out and tarnish my reputation. Please note that for me airplanes are not so great to defecate in, when I am at my house I like to carry a book or my phone, lay my tissue and spend hours. This is not the case on a plane when you know people are waiting on you, you have to just hurry and do your business and get out and please do not get me started on flushing; there are times I have pressed that little button until I am purple in the face and the darn thing won’t make that whooshing sound and go down. That happened to me one time when I did a number two (seems that’s all I ever do on planes doesn’t it?) Anyway it was the same fifteen hour flight and there I was despairing and about to burst in tears because it wouldn’t go down, finally after about three minutes of pressing it finally did. When I looked it was only some of it, there were still little splashes on the sides, I was mortified, I tried to press again but it wouldn’t flush and I couldn’t leave it, I was the only black person on the plane, the person who came after me would know and then I imagined they would spread it around and then I would be known as Shitty Willy (the name we called my little cousin because she wouldn’t stop doing it on herself) and of course my ancestors wouldn’t be proud that I embarrassed heir good name in such a manner . I am going to tell you what I did and if you ever ask me about this or say anything to anyone I know I am going to vehemently deny it I swear to the old Gods and the new. I wrapped my hand in almost a roll of tissue and I wiped all around in the toilet then I threw it in the bin. I then washed my hands, took out my bath and body works and did my usual spraying, I felt a bit ashamed but me and my ancestors reputation were intact and that was something to be proud of.
I have met and formed bonds with so many people while travelling, some of them I am still friends with, some I just hold on to the memories. There are people like Linda the beautiful African girl I met in Frankfurt who told me how to act when I felt uncomfortable being stared at; she was working in the airport but she sat and talked to me for hours, she said I was the nicest person she had ever met while working and I was quite pleased to have made her happy, she recently sent me her marriage photos and invited me for a visit. Then there is tramit, the Turkish man who I am ashamed to say convinced me that the Arab man I was conversing with was carrying a bomb. We were running up and down in the airport like headless chickens in fear of the man’s briefcase and how could I forget the Italian man I never got his name who saw I was in pain and uncomfortable sitting beside him. He told me to take off my shoes, and then he placed my feet on his lap and massaged them until I fell asleep. It must have been quite uncomfortable for him to have my feet in his lap but he didn’t complain once, at the end of the ride I thanked him very much, he nodded and left, he never knew my name nor did I know his but wherever he is in this world I hope God blesses him. I have met so many other people who have impacted my life in so many ways but I will tell you about it next time for now its toodles and thanks for reading.
Written and Copyrighted by Aneisha A. Smith March 17, 2017
posted from Bloggeroid
