The flight

A bus picked us up at the hotel at 6:15 and drove us to the airport, giving us four hours to get our tickets, pass through security, and locate our gate. Dulles is very architecturally interesting; the main terminal looks like the wing of a giant airplane sitting on top of a giant glass box. It also has an indoor tram system that takes you from the terminal to the gate. We got through everything without any major problems, although there was a small security problem because the airline had switched two people’s passport numbers.

The first 12 hour flight wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I had a middle seat, but the people on either side were very nice. One of them was an American ex-pat going home to Dubai. He showed me how to use the screen on the back of the seat and other tricks of international flights. We got to Qatar about 20 minutes late, but had plenty of time to make the connection. The airport in Doha is still under construction, so we disembarked onto the tarmac and were brought to the terminal in buses. It was dark when we got there, but it was still 100 degrees Fahrenheit (it is the desert, after all). I could smell the ocean when I stepped off of the plane.

The next leg of the flight was five and a half hours, from Doha to Dhaka. I purposefully slept through most of it and did not eat anything. We were scheduled to arrive in Dhaka at 5:30 AM so I wanted to get on Dhaka time as soon as possible. Even though it was shorter, this flight felt longer than the first one because I was really tired of sitting down and just wanted to get off of the plane already. I was in a middle seat again, and the man to the right of me was very large and took up a good part of my seat as well as his own, so it was very uncomfortable. I was very happy when we landed in Bangladesh.