26 January, 2018: It’s really happening! I’ve finally left the US in a non-vacation sort of way, and I’m so excited. I’ll be traveling and working remotely for… a year? More? Indefinitely? We’ll see.
I started my new adventure with a one-way ticket to London via Norwegian Air. I love flying anyway, but this was an exceptional flight, because I had an exceptional plane.
It was the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, to be exact. Big, new, shiny, pretty, and as a nice bonus, mostly empty. I had a whole row to myself, as well as the rows in front of and behind and across from me(!), so it felt a little bit like having my own private plane. Not entirely, though, because one of the few rows near me that was occupied featured a crying baby. It’s important to have those reality checks sometimes.
The windows are bigger than on a normal plane, and they have dimmer switches instead of shades. I have no idea how the dimmer works (cue a dive down a Wikipedia rabbithole… now). The air is fresher, and circulated differently (I learned all this from the plane propaganda ad, which we watched twice, before and after takeoff). The cabin is less pressurized and the lighting is gentler, all of which means a more comfortable flight and (supposedly) less jet lag*, hurrah!
It also has a really lovely gentle curve at the ends of the wings, which make it look very graceful:
As 9-hour flights go, it was pretty great. The food/drinks cost extra on Norwegian, but that’s alright because a) I just brought my own, which was probably better than plane food anyway and b) the flight cost less than a flight to the east coast, so I’ll take the lack of perks with no complaints.
Overall, 9/10, would fly again.
*I can’t really speak to the “less jet lag” part, because I made the mistake of taking a “power nap” upon arrival to my hotel at 8am local time. At least, it was meant to be a power nap, but it wound up being a “sleep through half the afternoon and completely ruin your new sleep schedule” situation. I knew better, but I forgot. Lesson learned, I hope?
Shastified, Continued 