Photo above: Seriously, this is how planes look to me…

You know, the interesting thing about travelling to another country is that you are forcing yourself to go head-first into something completely unknown to you. You don’t know the language, the city, or the customs or standards of culture beyond what you may have learned on the internet in the months prior to you trip (seriously – how did people even do this sans Internet?!). Scary enough, right? Now, couple this with *severely* debilitating airplane anxiety (we’re talking “panic attack and crying as the plane takes off.. Don’t even ASK about turbulence” anxiety), and you’ve got a recipe for one of two things – complete and total disaster followed by mental breakdown or a life-changing experience unparalleled by anything else you’ve ever done in your entire life and a new perspective on your own strength. Thankfully, my first trip out of the country led me to the latter of these two outcomes. I decided to tackle my fear head-on, so I spent a few days before my trip learning about the mechanical workings of airplanes, what exactly turbulence was and how it can’t make a plane plummet out of the sky, and how pilots are trained to deal with even the rarest emergency situations like having both engines die at the same time. Though it seems extreme, I wanted to be mentally prepared to respond with pure logic anytime my brain decided to freak out and tell me the plane was going down at any minute. I felt worlds better already once I learned that pilots pretty much have it covered and the plane essentially becomes a glider if all engines fail.

On the day of my trip, I  prepared myself mentally and physically to board my first plane in Tampa by getting to the airport extremely early (5 hours) to avoid hiccups with security and to make sure I was well fed and settled before what might be the most terrifying experience ever. I found out shortly after that my plane was delayed six hours, so I had an entire 10 hours, then, to sit and wait for my original plane’s replacement, as well as figure out how to get new flights to replace the ones that I would be missing due to my original flight’s layover. The experience was maddening, for sure, and I had a couple of close calls that would have caused me to have to cancel my trip completely. By this point, I didn’t even have time to worry about the plane ride. Thankfully, my new friend Gina was there to lend me a hand and help me get through some of these difficult processes and keep pushing forward. It was like a boot camp for resolution and flexibility.

The good news is that the planes rides (three total) only made up about half of the time I spent getting to Bangkok and, by the time I actually got on the planes, I was so exhausted from the rigamarole of the flight changes and from sleeping on concrete airport floors for hours on end that the small, uncomfortable economy-class seats of the plane were much welcomed! I also got to watch some great movies, too! I would be lying to you if I said that I actually slept on the plane. It was more of a shutdown from stress – my body just had to reboot for the next bout of adrenaline.

I finally arrived to Bangkok after 48 hours (20 of these spent flying in an actual airplane and 6 of these spent wandering around NYC with Gina in search of a place to sleep for the evening) and I realized that I had accomplished one of the most emotionally difficult things I’d ever accomplished in my entire life. And the good news was that the trip had only just begun.