Day 23

A week from today, Müs is leaving for an Epic Adventure in Chile. It will involve astronomy, data that I do not understand, nerds (probably), and hopefully Chilean beer. It will also involve 30 hours of travel, which sucks a lot. I've done similar trips, though when I've traveled that long, it usually involves extended stretches of time sitting in airports. So I was mentally compiling a list of helpful travel tips, which may or may not be obvious, and then I thought, 'Hey, I can use this as a blog post!' And here we are.

Travel Tips (mostly for international travel):

• Bring food. This may not apply to those of you with normal metabolism. My brother and I share the same crazy hyper metabolism, and if we don't eat on a regular schedule (for me, it's 4 hours), heads will roll. I am not kidding. People don't take this seriously, and then I get all snappy and hurt people's feelings and then I'm like, SEE I TOLD YOU. Good travel food: granola bars, dried fruit, nuts, pretzels, peanut butter sandwiches. Stay away from: fresh fruit (unless you're going to eat it in the airport; customs people frown upon taking fruit across borders), yogurt, salad, sandwiches that can't handle being squashed or lack of refrigeration.
• Buy a huge bottle of water once you get through security. If you're cheap like me, you can also get a normal-sized water and refill the bottle from water fountains. (This applies only in the US; not all countries enjoy their water fountains as much as we do.)
• Do not get sucked into the in-flight entertainment. This inevitably happens to me; I always think I'm going to sleep on the plane, but wait, I wanted to see this movie when it was in the theaters, and this movie looks good too, and ooh, a trivia game! Next thing I know, we've landed, it's 5am and I haven't slept. Awesome.
• Time your in-flight meals and sleep accordingly. Make sure you get food when the flight attendants come around with it (meals or snacks); it's a pain to try to flag them down. Also, when they're finally finished with snack/food/duty free liquor and perfume service, take the opportunity to stretch your legs in the aisle and take a nap. You're less likely to be bothered by carts going back and forth if you wait until they're all done... until breakfast, anyway.
• While on the plane, get up and walk around once in a while. Otherwise, you get really stiff. As an added bonus, you get the mildly creepy sight of all the passengers with their headphones on, staring into screens that are emitting a bluish light. It's very '1984'.
  
• Sleep on the plane. It's hard, but try to zone out, at least. I only recently found out that the sides of the head rest fold towards your head, which gives you something to lean on and a chance to avoid an awfully stiff neck. I also put my backpack in the leg space and stretch my feet underneath the seat in front of me, to pretend I have extra leg room. And I put the pillow they give you at my lower back. It's all planned out. I always feel sort of bad about leaning back into someone's space, but I usually go part of the way. Besides, I always get stuck behind someone who leans ALL THE WAY back as soon as we take off, so it's all about fairness. Right?
• Other vital things to bring: iPod + earphones (can be used for the inflight movie/radio, too), books, puzzles, neck pillow, crappy magazines bought at airport newsstands, possibly a toothbrush so you can brush your teeth once you get off the longest flight.
  
• Don't wear contacts. It's not worth the hassle.
  

Any other tips? Comment away!