The Not-So-Subtle Art of First Time Flying
Chronicles of an Unforgettable First Flight to Berlin
In retrospect, I was at the airport, traveling to Berlin, flipping through all the documents — passport, official letters, invitations, etc. — while patting my pocket every two seconds to check on the passport (because I was told to clutch my passport so tightly that only death could part us). I was actually engrossed, not averting my eyes.
Don’t laugh. It was my first time flying to Berlin — ALONE — and from a third-world country. You may not realize how difficult it is to go through immigration when you are from a developing Asian nation, no matter how educated or professional you may appear.
Oh, let’s not go there. Writing about the details of the documentation that causes enormous hassle throughout your journey would be like walking through Death Valley in Arizona. Literally.
Anyway, I was excited about this solo travel, but it was both incredible and also unbearable at the same time. I felt every speck of atom inside me was jittering, as if they could go berserk any minute, even before I had a chance to take off on Turkish Airlines.
Announcements were blaring, and I was trying to fend off my screaming anxieties by skimming through the pages of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu***”, but with deep sighs, I couldn’t shake them off. It was an utter disgust to see my fears and anxiety emerge from nowhere and shatter my confidence with their sharp gashes.
Turkish Airlines was my choice; wanted a better and more beautiful transit in Istanbul. Alone. But yeah, who cares except Facebook check-ins and Insta reels.
As I mentioned above, it was my solo trip, and also the first time when I was sitting in an airplane. I was sitting by a window seat (luckily) and had another Asian student sitting beside me.
But the flight fright was still there, lurking behind, and looming over me.
The only good part of traveling alone is that you stumble, you fall, and you learn — along the way. No matter how “meh” these lessons are; either good or bad, whether they make you or break you — they ultimately become a memory to relish.
I was sitting on the plane, with a student from Berlin beside me. We had a brief chat before take off. Though I was nervous inside, but it didn’t show on my cosmetic-laden face, my over-beaming show-off smile, and my casual yet jittery legs.
Amidst a raging turmoil of shrieking anxieties, I had no idea what to expect. I was not prepared for this ear barotrauma — What the Hell! it was extremely painful. I glanced over at the student beside me, who had not budged, while I was rolling right, left, and toppling over in terrible pain. My harmless show-off was thrust into a trash bin, and my small lie about being too casual about air travel was thrown out of the window. But the pain in the ears was not going away anytime soon. I was like screaming my lungs out, but yeah, a muffled one, it couldn’t be that loud in the plane. But yeah, surely it was loud enough to be overheard by the student beside me.
He tried to console me, but no… I was too pompous to take his advice and chose to feign more arrogance. In short, I didn’t listen to him. I tried to rummage through my mind if a friend had ever mentioned this … No… there was nothing… I was in so much pain and desperation. Since it was all new to me, this pain seemed like a sore to me. Finally, when I was covering up my ears, my mind came up with a solution and jabbed me with a sudden recall to chew bubble gum, which I didn’t have any. Fuck!! I didn’t have one.
I imploringly prayed to God, and at that instant, my blurred sight saw a pair of bubble gum inside a transparent packet, peeking through the butt of an Asian student sitting next to me. I hastily groped it without a second thought, not considering if my fingers, in a rush, might accidentally touch his side. But remember, I was in terrible pain! And my fingers did brush his side, and he did look at me quizzically, puzzled. But who actually cared at that instant. But I did throw a fake smile toward him, averted my eyes, and started peeling off the packet. In one second, I took hold of my precious bubble gum, the other second a pair of red gums were inside my mouth.
I was chewing them. Chewing. Chewing. Chewing.
But, what the HELL! Why were these bubble gums tasteless? Were these for diabetes? Sugar-free? I didn’t pay any heed to the quizzical look of my companion, who seemed trying to say something to me, but I was the Pro-traveler. Nay?
I was still chewing, no matter how disgusting it tasted. For a moment, the pain in my ears was gone, and I was able to regain my composure, still chewing the tasteless gums with my mouth slightly open. I tried to salvage my façade of being a seasoned traveler in front of my companion.
But before I could say any word, the student beside me — who’s also Asian, my language companion, and the same person who’s sitting on the tasteless pair of bubble gums that were inside my mouth, said:
“Actually, those were earbuds you put in your mouth”. At that moment, my mouth froze.
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