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Wednesday, May 02, 2018
To boot, I wanted a working VNC for this trip. Having access to files and emails would be important. My iPhone had been reset, so most emails older than a week were now gone. A connection back home would be my only way to access them. This plan didn't pan out. The first time I attempted to reach my home computer was a failure, though it caused no major issues.
I had been packing for days, so there was little stress on the day of the flight out. I got a few business things done and then finally took Uber to my friend Ruth's place. From there, we got a ride to Oakland Airport. There was time, though it was not a high amount.
At the airport, we had the Norwegian check-in line first. There's no online checking in for them. I guess it's so they can better examine what one is bringing on and to weigh the bags. Last time, they weighed my carry-on, but this time just the checked bag. They also use kiosks for the boarding passes now. Nice. A kiosk can replace a worker, but without the need for bathroom or smoke breaks. Well, at least not to my knowledge. Perhaps someday, I'll open a back door and discover four or five kiosks lighting up.
Since my friend and I checked our bags together, we were asked if we wanted to sit together? Come again? This was an option? I mean this was a free option? I was perplexed because I had paid an extra $45 online to ensure this would be the case. Learning it could have been done for free was not a happy moment. (Granted, there is a risk that the plane would be filled up so much that this would not have been possible.) Still, live and learn. Security was next.
It wasn't bad. No TSA pre-check for this flight. That costs a lot more. But the line moved and soon we were free to walk around until boarding time. There wasn't much time. It's always hard to gauge and how much time is needed. I always like to ensure there's more than enough. Before we knew it, we were on the plane.
As luck would have it, there was no one in the window seat in our row. This made stretching out much easier. And while sleeping flat is easiest when the row only has one person. Two beats three any day of the week. (Okay, sleeping is best in first class, but that wasn't an option. One can't just pop into one of those seats.)
Once in the air, I finally got to try the Norwegian meal. It was ... well, not great. The food wasn't bad, per se; it just wasn't especially nice and tasty (Which is what they call it!) It's also very small of course. When one pays for the upgrade, one can consider the seat choice and checked bag the main purchases for the extra $90. And then meal is then essentially "free." But one could pay $45 for just the meal. To which I would say that one would have to be insane. It's simply nowhere near that much money in value. Even $10 would be pushing it.
No worries though. We brought snacks.
To kill time, we had plenty of movies and shows loaded on my iPad. We would just split the iPad audio signal into two headphones with a Y-adapter. Trouble is I had mistakenly thought a Headphone/Microphone splitter was such a tool, and surprise, it was not. Thus, we had ro share and have audio in one ear only. Not ideal.
After a few television shows, we elected to rest. Sleep wasn't great, but having that empty seat did help. I nodded off and probably got about three hours of rest.