I’m here! I was really dreading the flight over, but it turned out to be one of the best flights I’ve had. I lucked out and was in economy plus, instead of normal economy/coach, and that made a huge difference. Plus, no one sat next to me on either flight so I was able to stretch out a little. Not having to share the armrest is fantastic!

Each seat had individual TV screens built in to the back of the seat in front of it. I don’t normally watch movies on the plane, I like to read and watch the map that shows the flight’s progress. However they were showing three movies I wanted to see (“Definitely, Maybe”, “The Other Boleyn Girl”, and “Horton Hears a Who” for those that are interested) and since the seat next to me was empty I could use that TV for my map. The movies were on demand too, which means I was able to decide when I wanted to watch them and in what order. I could also pause, rewind, and fast forward (do I sound like a commercial?). I was definitely not roughing it by any means. Oh, and something else cool about the map display – they had an option to view one of two cameras on the plane. So we could see the pilots’ view or the view down, of what we were flying over – pretty cool. I’m keeping my fingers cross that the flight home is half as good, especially since it’s almost 3 hours longer.

It was about a 45 minute drive from the airport to the hotel, and the hotel is really nice. The elevators had me totally confused though. I got in to the elevator, pressed the button for my floor, and waited. The doors closed, but nothing happened. So I opened the door crossed the lobby and tried a different elevator. The door closed, I pressed the button for my floor, and again nothing happened. At this point I gave up and asked the bellboy how to work the elevator. It turns out you have to insert your room key in to a slot in the elevator in order to make it work.

I just took a picture of the instructions for using the elevator that were on the desk in my room. Not that they helped because using them would have meant I got to the room prior to the incident, and I certainly wasn’t about to walk up 15 flights of stairs. Anyway, when trying to post them I realized I don’t have the software I need to remove the photos from my camera. I’m in the process of trying to find it online now. For your sakes I hope I do, or else this is going to be a pretty boring, photoless trip, and the photos were the whole reason for setting this up after all. Grrr.