You can learn to hate airtravel in less than a day.

As previously noted on Facebook, the flight from JFK to Dubai was spent trying desperately to sleep while seated next to an extremely fidgety teenager. If they make dogs fly in carriers in the cargo hold, why can’t we do the same thing with teenagers? This started out as a sort of rhetorical question in my mind until somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, it occurred to me that the PETA people would never allow the torture of those caged animals in the cargo bay by a bunch of teenagers…drugged or not… the teenagers that is.
Then there is dad. For reasons still unknown to me, he was compelled to explain to his spawn, in its entirety, the minutiae of air travel. In a booming voice…in both English and Farsi. I seriously wanted to throttle this guy but was so sleep deprived my motor control was at an all time low. Even the flight attendants looked on with barely disguised pity. That’s the kind of 12 hour flight that can actually make you look forward to a 7 hour layover in Dubai.
Most of the layover was spent in a sports bar trying to figure out who won the World Series game on Wednesday night. No one knew. Instead, I was treated to hour after hour of cricket, a game I have now formally given up all hope of ever understanding.
The flight to Colombo was much shorter (5 hours) and quieter, even though the obligatory screaming baby was only a few rows ahead of me. I was actually able to stretch out for a couple of quick power naps.
Finally, I’m in Colombo. Well Negombo really, it’s still a 30 minute ride to Colombo proper. So I’m standing in line at immigration thinking, “Oh yeah! I remember this! It’s REALLY hot here!” I immediately broke out in the familiar full body sweat. I like what they’ve done with the place, especially the newish signs that say: “Possession of Illegal Drugs is Punishable by Death.” This from the ministry of “we are so not f%$#ing kidding, have a nice day.”