September the 3rd, 2012, 6:45am. I was so excited! I was going to be in Seattle in less than 16 hours! My trip to Seattle was composed of three parts : a first flight from Paris to London, then a 5-hour layover in Heathrow Airport and the final 9.5-hour flight to Seattle.

First step was to go to Orly Airport with my father behind the wheel and my mother at his side. We got to the British Airways counter and the first problems arose. The lady at the counter couldn't swipe my passport through the passport-reading device. I was thinking "B*tch I have my passport, my visa and my ticket so why can't you just take my bags and let me go?" After a 20-minute wait, the issue was finally resolved. I was ready to go! My parents shed some tears (especially my mother), I went through security checks and next thing I knew I was in the Airbus A319 heading to London.

I don't like flying in small aircrafts, especially when I'm alone because I can't grab the arm of the person sitting next to me during takeoff and landing... And just when I thought it couldn't get worse, the stewardess started speaking. In British English. I could not get a word of what she was saying!

Takeoff. I kept my legs wide open so I could get in the brace position faster, and to hide that I pretended I was reading The Economist when I was really not. After 25 minutes I began to relax until the stewardess told me "Wadyalikasnak?" After asking her twice to repeat, I finally understood she was asking me in British English if I wanted a snack. And this made me nervous as hell because I was thinking 'in less than five hours I'll be in a 9.5-hour flight with British stewardesses asking me "wadyalikasnak" every hour'! Shortly after I had finished my snack, the pilot began the landing phase, so I went back to the brace position with The Economist between my legs. And there I was in London.

Next episode : "WargointaSeatLe" (We are going to Seattle)