Misery on board NZ 82 (this is an excerpt from an email i just send my mother! Will edit it and make it more post-like when i have some time!)

ok let me tell u wat happened exactly. i boarded the flight, found my seat. it was the aisle seat, on the windoe seat side. the window seat was empty. since i was one of the later ones to board, i thought..oooh maybe this will empty again like it was the last time i flew! Muslim lady sittning on the other side then asks me if anyone's sitting there. i shrug, thinking and even if there isn't, i don't want u moving coz i want 2 seats!!! I was soon to be made to pay a heavy price for that selfish though. oh after she asked me, she asked a stewardess, who checked her list and said that yes, someone was coming. so i was a little disappointed, but still thought..oh well, maybe it'll be someone nice...
i sit and look around watching everyone else generally when suddenyl i see a HUGE, BLACK TAMILEH boarding the flight. Then i'm like oh well....maybe he's sitting somewhere else. I cross my fingers. He walks my way. I cross my toes. He stops in front of my seat, looking for space in the overhead compartment. My heart skips a beat, my fingers and toes feel tingly. He looks meaningfully at me and then the seat next to me. I ask, heart in my mouth,my voice coming out squeaky, is this your seat? He nods. My world collapses at my sneakers. I get up in a panic. I can't, I immediately fall back. I realise that in my panic, I've forgotten to undo the seatbelt.
sigh. so i got up and let him get in. he was so big that he couldn't get in his seat without raising the armrest dividing our seats. Within 2 mins (no exaggeration here) I found myself seated next to a hulking, heaving mass of hairy flesh that was spilling into my seat and emitting grunting, choking noises. yes within 2 mins of sitting down (the flight hadn't even taken off) my companion (for the next 11 hours which stetched interminably before me) was sound asleep and making more noise than the aircraft which was preparing to take off!!!!! I couldn't read because of the noise, i was pressing myself to the other armrest on the aisle side so that this vile creature wouldn't press up against me (unintentionally or otherwise..) I was miserably and ppl 4 rows down who were turning back to see what all that noise was abt, were giving me such sympathetic looks.
I sat there, so tired coz altho i had slept a little at harish's plce, it wasn't enough. I was cramped in my seat, had to be so wary about his hands which would keep jerking in his sleep. And then as I had my dinner (i just had bread rolls coz i was too upset to eat) he started slobbering in his sleep!!!!! Anyway, by this time, i had already gone tearfully to the air hostess, telling her abt my predicament and pleading to be given another seat. Any other seat.
So finally, after 2 and a half hours of this misery, she came up to me and whispered, pack! you're moving! gosh i jumped up and out of there even before she's finished her sentence!!!!!

The rest of flight, that i spent, sleeping, watching Shark Tale (i think that's what its called) and chatting with a cool girl from Russia, was lovely.

I'm quite glad to ba back in NZ (altho of course i miss the parents and harish)
  ¶ 2:20 pm