That Time I Reported a Fellow Passenger to a Flight Attendant

Friday workout: 6 miles, 10:30 average, Pace Gloves
Saturday workout: 5 miles, 10:50-ish average, Pace Gloves

I thought I was done talking about Norway, but then I happened to rediscover the awesome shots I took while flying from Oslo to New York and realized I wanted to talk about that 26-hour saga.

Let's start with getting to the Oslo airport. Norway, you've got public transportation DOWN. The T-bane was awesome (and omg clean!!!!!!! Nary a hint of urine in the air!) and getting from downtown to the airport on whatever that train was called took two seconds. 

Those buildings are pretty rad.

This was the first time I've flown during the day in literally seven or eight years, and it was so nice to be able to actually see things. Also, because I was flying west, it was light the ENTIRE TRIP. That's 26 hours of daylight. It was trippy.

I don't really want to tell you about the entire trip, I just want to show you the following photos and tell you a story about what a paranoid (and delightful?) traveler I am. First, photos taken who knows where! My flight map was broken so all I can say is that it was somewhere between Oslo and New York. I'm pretty sure we flew over Iceland and Greenland, so probably somewhere in that general area.

If it's jagged and covered in snow, it will be my favorite thing ever.

If you're having a hard time distinguishing this from the previous picture, you're not alone.

It totally looks like we're in space. Also, the sky really was that blue.

Okay, last one, I swear!

So, paranoid traveler story. I want to preface this by saying that although I pretty much always manage to convince myself the plane's about to go down for one reason or another, I've never reported a fellow passenger to the flight crew. Uh-huh. You read that right. I tattled on my seat-mate for convincing me he was up to no good. Watch out, fliers, Jeano's on the case!

I swear, though, this guy was CREEPY. He was totally up to no good. At first he was just going in and out of the bathroom every two seconds. Strange, but not unheard of. Maybe he was hungover. After a few back-and-forths, though, he came back to his seat, pulled some documents out of his bag, and went right back into the bathroom for the next half hour. WHY? WHY DID HE BRING PAPERS IN THERE WITH HIM? In my mind, they were instructions for dismantling an essential part of the plane accessible only from the bathroom. See, I'm totally sane, right?

He finally came back to his seat, and I was able to rest easy... until thirty seconds later when he and those damn papers made their way to the emergency exit, where he parked himself for the next hour "reading" but really figuring out how he could open the emergency door and make the plane go down (does a plane go down if you open one of those things? I don't understand science). At this point, we were about three hours into the flight and I had done nothing but stalk him the entire time. I was very tired but determined to be the hero that saved everyone's (okay, mostly my own) lives.

Eventually, he sat down again... for ten minutes. Then it was back to the bathroom for another half hour, and then BACK TO THE EMERGENCY DOOR. What are you doing, Norwegian man?! Why can't you sit in your damn seat?! At this point, I decided it was worth revealing my insanity to the flight attendants if there was even the remotest possibility he really was up to something. So I walked right up to a flight attendant and told him my crazy theory.

He was nice enough to take me semi-seriously, although he asked me a strange question like, "What are you having to drink?" I don't know if he was asking if I had been drinking (although it would probably help my craziness, I'm always worried drinking on a plane will just make it worse so I never do it) or offering to give me a free drink to calm me down. Who knows. I said no. The flight attendant said he would keep an eye on my Norwegian nemesis and I sat back down.

Surprisingly enough, evil man sat down after I reported him. He stayed seated for an hour or so and I was able to relax a bit (not sleep, though. Constant vigilance!).

Just as I was able to convince myself we were in the clear, we started descending and of course this gd Norwegian GOES BACK TO THE BATHROOM. Dude didn't come out again UNTIL AFTER WE LANDED. I was literally semi-hyperventilating in my seat. I couldn't believe no one else seemed concerned about this crazy man.

Obviously I survived. That doesn't change the fact that this man was up to no good. I'm convinced he was aware of the fact that I could do nothing but stare at him and thus decided to let us live. See? I'm totally crazy. I hate, hate, hate to fly and am relieved I don't have another flight scheduled any time soon (I'm pretty sure I'm going to drive to grad school instead of flying, thanks god).

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Moving on to running, it's been so beautiful in Anchorage the past few days! So much sun and so much snow melt. It's still around 12-17 degrees in the mornings, but in the afternoon it's been a shocking 50+ degrees in the sun. In fact, I ran in shorts both yesterday and today. Today, I even had to shed the long-sleeve shirt I was wearing! Yes, folks, I, the ice queen, ran in shorts and a tank top. It was a sight to behold (or maybe not-this girl's skin is PALE).

Kind of a terrible shot but the only picture I took on my run yesterday.

Taken today-look at that sky!

I've been completely unable to keep my pace as slow as I'm supposed to these past few days. It was actually really frustrating today, as I literally didn't feel I could go any slower and yet I was running 10:50s or so (I was supposed to be running 11:38). This is obviously not the end of the world since I'm still maintaining the spirit of the workout (ie. run as slowly as possible), but obsessive Jeano has definitely been yelling at me a lot.

Tomorrow's a doozy - 15 miles! My longest run in almost a year. Eeeeeeek! I'll be fine, though. I'm taking it easy tonight, hoping to get a good night's rest, and fueling with pancakes tomorrow morning.

I hope you're all doing wonderful things with your weekend! Tell me:

• What's the craziest/most paranoid thing you've ever done on a plane?
• What's the coolest place you've ever flown over?