Posted an entirely off-topic story in the hope of eliciting some sympathy from fellow b3tans
40 hours ago, I boarded a plane in San Jose, Costa Rica for a 10 hour flight to Madrid with a Spanish-based airline whose name may or may not rhyme with "Siberia".

I hate this airline. On a 12-hour flight from Madrid to Mexico City a few weeks previously, they had deigned only to give us two tiny glasses of water for the entire journey, which I'm pretty sure is some sort of human rights violation. They had also played really shit music of little kids singing Spanish Christmas carols for half an hour after take-off and half an hour before landing, which was bad enough to make anybody consider infanticide. I was already a bit apprehensive about the return journey.

So I boarded the plane, found my seat in the middle next to an overweight Honduran lady (pay attention - this is an important detail) and settled down for ten hours of fun.

An hour into the flight, I began to feel a little queasy. I forced myself to eat some of my dinner, reasoning that it was all I was getting for the next several hours. Big mistake. I drank the only glass of water I would get until breakfast.

I waited.

I didn't feel any better.

In fact, I was feeling much worse. The contents of my stomach were threatening to make their way back into the outside world with alarming speed.

It was then that I discovered that the lady sitting next to me was too large for me to even consider squeezing past, and refusing to get out of her seat. So I jumped over her and legged it to the bathroom.

Then I discovered that the contents of my stomach weren't actually going to make a hasty exit at all, and I was going to spend the next hour or two in the bathroom trying to vomit.

After some time I began to feel inexplicably better and returned to my seat (jumping over the Honduran lady again). Two minutes later I was DEFINITELY about to vomit, spectacularly and uncontrollably within the next few seconds. I grabbed a sick bag, leaped over my seat mate, made an undignified dash for the bathroom and *just* made it in time.

It was probably the most unpleasant vomiting session of my life. It was so acidic that it felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to my throat. When I emerged shaking from the bathroom half an hour later, I tried to find a stewardess - surely they would give me some water under the circumstances. But I could only find one sitting alone at the back of the plane, and she was asleep. And I was too much of a wuss to wake her up. Besides, I was about to vomit again.

This happened several times over the next couple of hours, through some pretty unpleasant turbulence I might add. I kept thinking I was feeling better, that there couldn't possibly be anything left in my stomach, returning to my seat, and then having to jump over my seat mate and sprint to the bathroom again. Passengers who were awake were watching the action unfold with increasing fascination, disgust and sympathy. For most of the time, I just stayed in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet listening to my iPod, without which I'm sure I would have gone completely bonkers, and occasionally turning round to vomit.

Finally, I emerged from the bathroom for the umpteenth time about 8 hours into the flight to discover that finally they were serving breakfast. I got myself a glass of water and went back to the bathroom, to discover that they were all occupied. So I sat myself down on one of the chairs just outside the toilets that the stewardesses sit in for take-off and landing. A few minutes later, one of the stewardesses serving drinks strode up to me. Now, I was sitting outside the bathroom, looking like death, shaking, shivering, clutching a sick bag in one hand and gingerly sipping a glass of water with the other. So I thought it a reasonable assumption that she was coming over to offer me some sympathy and ask if there was anything I needed. Not to tell me off for sitting in her chair, which was what she proceeded to do. I just gawped at her and stood up like a good girl.

A couple of hours later, it was time to go back to our seats for the long-awaited descent to Madrid. About five minutes before landing, I felt the urge to vomit AGAIN, despite the fact that I had puked up the water and had literally nothing left in my stomach. I was buggered if I was going to chunder into a sick bag in front of everyone. I leaped over Fat Honduran Lady for the last time, skidded past the rows of bemused passengers, any attempts the stewardesses tried to make to usher me back to my seat were met with a desperate "VOY A VOMITAR!!!" I think they concluded that it was best for all concerned if they let me use the bathroom.

Remember the shit Christmas music I said they played during take-off and landing? Well, whilst my entire body was convulsing with the supreme effort of ejecting the now-scant contents of my stomach, the soundtrack of my vomiting was a bunch of odious children singing, "Navidad, navidad, hoy es navidad!" (goes to the tune of Jingle Bells, to give you some idea of just how annoying it was).

Then the diarrhoea hit, just in time for the flight from Madrid to London.

I defy anyone to tell me they've ever had a worse journey than that. And now it's New Year's Eve, and instead of being out partying, I am stuck at home eating dry toast and reading b3ta.

So, um, stupid things I've done?

Flying with "Siberia"
Getting stomach flu
Co-ordinating the above
Thinking that b3tans might give me sympathy
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Tue 1 Jan 2008, 1:28, 11 replies)

sending sympathy (and sparkling water)
travelling while sick is awful. my wife and i had food poisoning while flying back from our honeymoon in turkey. trying to explain via urgent hand signals (this while in a fevered, semi-hallucinatory state, mind you) why i didn't really care that the plane was about to land wasn't exactly the way i'd pictured returning home from the romantic trip of a lifetime.
happy new year, anyway!
(tuqueboy has been in a medically -induced coma since, Tue 1 Jan 2008, 1:46, closed)

Personally
I'd have spewed over the fat Honduran lady as a reawrd for not getting out of my way. Everything happens for a reason and if she can't be arsed moving for what is a very urgent movement more fool her.
I wish you a speedy recovery. Also if you think it was their food that set you off file a complaint?
(Evilweevil is covered in bees, Tue 1 Jan 2008, 2:31, closed)

I hope you get well soon
Chin up, it's always darkest just before the end of the storm. If there's ever a next time, don't suffer in silence, I would have puked over the passenger that wouldn't move, misery loves company!
(alanrbnsn, Tue 1 Jan 2008, 3:11, closed)

customer service
wow, that's some pretty special committment to the whole "customer is always right" thinger. Hope you're better soon.
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Tue 1 Jan 2008, 11:16, closed)

Well,
on the bright side Id guess '08 can only get better!
(kitescreech still here, Tue 1 Jan 2008, 12:42, closed)

*hugs*
nothing worse than being sick on an aeroplane - hope you feel better soon!
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Tue 1 Jan 2008, 13:08, closed)

Sympathy
I'll send you sympathy. That really does sound like one of the most hellish journeys ever. I had food poisoning on a plane once from Bulgaria to London but was thankfully so ill I fainted about an hour into the flight and remember very little else of the whole experience!

Here's hoping that your travel in 2008 will be better!
( commiegirl21 Can't think of anything witty on..., Tue 1 Jan 2008, 14:33, closed)

Sympathies.
The closest I've ever come to your situation was on a long train journey, so I can't imagine what you went through.

At least it's not likely to happen again.

Hopefully.

And I'd avoid that airline again if I were you.
(singingringingtree Living in the past., Tue 1 Jan 2008, 17:52, closed)

Good Old
"Siberia" airlines.

You can always spot their planes on the runway. They're the ones with hair under the wings..
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Wed 2 Jan 2008, 0:00, closed)

sympathy from me too
see? you weren't stupid to think we care

even if we've never met you

and I would have thrown up on the fat bitch AND the stewardess that had a go at you.
(misskitty reeks of sex and turpentine; laudanum afternoons, Wed 2 Jan 2008, 2:22, closed)

*sends sympathy*

Last time I flew with this airline we were stuck on the tarmac a had to listen to the shittest music I have ever heard on repeat for over an hour I was ready to call bomb and get the plane evacuated!

Oh and one the stewardessesesss (?) spent much of the flight smoking which I'm fairly sure is illegal.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Wed 2 Jan 2008, 10:08, closed)