Oh boy, that was a long day! When it was all said and done, it probably took about 20 hours and 3 flights to get here, and we were all exhausted. Our flight left from New Orleans around 11:15 am to JFK. We then had a 5 hour layover in NY. Our flight to Madrid was about 6.5 hours (not too bad). Our last flight to San Sebastián was only about an hour.
All things considered, I’m pretty happy with the way everything went. However, when we boarded the first flight, James completely flipped out. He was screaming on the top of his lungs, arching his back, and he kept saying “outside.” Basically, he wanted OFF. This went on probably for about 20 minutes while everyone was getting on the plane. I can only imagine what they were thinking about us! I remember leaning over to Justin at one point and saying that we are going to need to abort this whole trip if it doesn’t get any better. And I was dead serious. He said that he was reviewing cancellation policies in his head before I even said that. It was BAD. To add insult to injury, the stewardess insisted that I put him in his own seat with a seatbelt. Every time I would attempt to do this, James would arch his back and wiggle underneath the seatbelt onto the floor. We were quite the scene. Finally, I ended up using one arm to pin him into the seat and the other to buckle him in. I had to physically hold him in the seat while he calmed down. He finally accepted a sucker and his kindle/headphones. Bad start to a long day. However, after that initial scene, the plane took off, and he did really well for the rest of the flight.
