holy fear of flying...

ok, i fly a lot. that has already been determined. this christmas vacation, i flew on several flights. on friday the 21st, i had to go from chicago to newark, change planes and go from newark to portland, maine. on sunday the 23rd, i flew from portland, maine back to newark and then from newark to houston. and finally, i flew back yesterday afternoon from houston to chicago. that's a lot of flying in less than a week, but not the most flights i've ever taken in such a short period. that record belongs to my work trip where in 2.5 days i flew 13 different flights. that was insane! but nevertheless, i digress. back to the present...

generally speaking i am not afraid to fly. it's just something i do. i don't like it, but it gets me to wherever i want to go fairly quickly and thus is a nececssary evil. but, sometimes things make me nervous. and on my flight from newark to houston, i got very nervous!

my parents were supposed to be on a flight on sat evening so they could be home for a going away party on sunday, but their original flight was cancelled and our flight was completely booked so they flew thru detroit. my brother and i were on the flight for sunday from newark. the flight went fine. we were on one of those really big planes - 2 seats, 3 seats, 2 seats. there were a bunch of pilots on the flight too just going along for the ride. the flight was going smoothly and fine up until the landing. the plane had screens and were showing our flight progress and how high we were. we got down to about 3000 feet and suddenly turned away from the airport and i realized we were starting to circle. but, planes don't normally circle so low b/c they burn more fuel at lower altitudes... so i started to get a little nervous, but the pilots and flight attendants didn't make any announcements and that was even more troubling. so then a flight attendant comes and talks to the pilot sitting in the row right in front of me and i couldn't hear so that added to my nervousness... and then he started looking down the aisle several times and that really didn't help me feel any better! so finally we start to descend from our steady hold at 3000 feet and as we are landing, there are flashing lights everywhere on the runway - ambulances and fire trucks! what?! but still, no announcement! uhhh, let's talk nerves here people... i was feeling more than a little nervous here. so then we land on the runway without incident, but we just stopped at the end of it. ok, planes don't stop at the end of the runway ever. they always move out of the way. still no announcement. and then finally, they cleared us and we went on our way to the gate.

the pilot in front of me started to talk to me and said that the flight attendant warned him that he may be needed if there was an emergency. apparently the landing gear didn't want to go down or the warning light was on so they weren't sure... but i knew something wasn't right...luckily, the flight landed without incident and everything was just fine... but for a few moments, it was rather nerve wracking!!!