Travel Agents and Aisle Seats

I made it to Cairo a few days ago and despite jet lag and a cold I'm fighting (which may account for this not being too pretty) here are some things I've managed to learn about flying: Travel agents are great; they can help you find tickets in the confusion of all the ticket craziness and can also answer general questions about travel insurance ( which i opted not to get) and help you with layovers (I chose to stay over in amsterdam -- where I needed to change planes anyway -- for 5 days on my way back.). Still, if you're going to book a ticket with a travel agent, you might not actually get the best fare. (They've got to make their money somehow, I guess. ) Also, you should make sure they let you select your seats while they're booking your flight. I did not insist on this, actually forgot all about it, and by the time I remembered to go online to reserve a seat, most of the good ones were taken. Of course, if you book your ticket well in advance, you might not be able to pick your seat anyway because you can only do it 90 days in advance (I'm pretty sure and I'll check on this to make sure later).

Given all of the questions and requests I had: I wanted to stop over somewhere on my way back from Cairo for a while, I wanted to find out about Travel Insurance (I'll get back to you about that later), I had a limited budget, and I was running out of time -- I would use the travel agent again. Now that I know a little bit more about what I'm doing, though, I would go to kayak.com. Now, I don't think the travel agent was a bad thing. I liked mine. (Tim Goddard from FlightcentreUSA in Redondo Beach, California...) It's always good to have a person you can call and arrange things for you that speaks your language and might have access to more resources than you do. I'm aways a fan of making relationships with people in this way (as anti-social as i can be sometimes) because in a jam it's the person and not the internet that'll help you out. But I would at least check out kayak.com to see their prices and then call the travel agent and compare, even see if you can talk them down.

I also learned that while the window seat is great for leaning on when trying to sleep, that the aisle is actually a better choice. Now, I'm 5 foot nothing and generally, a pretty small girl, but even I was cramped in the window seat on the plane to minneapolis. I'm a constant fidgeter, so my theory has always been to lean into the window to give me more fidget room, but on a 7 hour flight, no amount of fidgeting will help. What does help is frequent trips to the bathroom and not feeling stuck because you can't move for fear of elbowing your neighbor. Anti-perspirant and chewing gum help even more ( I forgot the gum).

Originally, I had selected window seats across the board for my entire trip, but as the gods would have it, I missed my connection in minneapolis/st. paul due to tornado weather (with 100's of others) and was forced to take an aisle seat when my flight was rebooked. Honestly, guys, I'm never going window again!