Friday 7/21

Off!
Made it to the airport with nearly 2 hours to spare for my 10:15am departure from Dayton. The ticket counter wasn’t busy at all. That was a plus.

Pat’s International Travel Tips (PITT) #1: PAY ATTENTION AT THE TICKET COUNTER! I checked in and hauled my bags over to the x-ray machine before double checking my seat assignment. That’s not right, I thought. It wasn’t even close to the seats I had reserved. And as it turned out, not only that, but the ticket agent had checked me in under somebody else’s name! So, back I went to the counter. The agent had to stop my bags and re-tag them. Sheesh!

The flight from Dayton left a little late. I think we got a very scenic view of the southern part of the Chicagoland area, too, since it seemed we circled a little. Landed at a gate in the F concourse. Flight to Beijing departs from the far end of the B concourse. RATS! That’s a lengthy trek. I hustled and got there about 20 minutes before boarding started. If I'd taken it more casually, I would have just gotten there before the boarding started

Pat’s International Travel Tips (PITT) #2: CHECK IN AT THE GATE. Even though I had a boarding pass, with a seat assignment, and even though the monitor at the gate indicated I didn’t need to check in if that was the case, I still had to. This was because all boarding passes had to be stamped with “Visa OK” before you were allowed to board.

The gate area in Chicago was wholly inadequate to handle a flight holding over 400 people, and this gate area actually had at least 3 separate overseas flights going on at the same time. One happened to be headed to Shanghai. Anyway, the gate area was pandemonium, barely controlled and a little nerve-wracking.

And, MOOOOOOOOOO.! With this many people trying to all board within about 20 minutes of one another, it’s hard not to feel herded. When they started loading the plane, it was done by zone rather than merely by row number. I was in Zone 4, which is near the center of the plane and in Economy Plus. Economy Plus gives you the same seats as in regular Economy class, but with a little more legroom. That’s a nice touch. The difference is that with regular Economy, my knees touch the seatback in front of me, but with Economy Plus there's 2-3 extra inches there.

Plane left Chicago about 30 minutes behind schedule, but we’re told we’ll land in Beijing 20 minutes ahead of time. Oh, boy! Now to settle in for about 13 hours...