My internal clock is finding it hard to believe that it's light outside right now, which might have something to do with the fact that I'm sitting in Shannon, Ireland. Since I only got maybe two hours of sleep on the plane, I wonder if I'm going to crash horribly later today.

I haven't flown internationally since 2000, so I was a little paranoid about it being a horrible nightmare, but so far it hasn't been. I haven't managed to trip any metal detectors yet, though I did accidentally leave my laptop in my bag when I sent it through the scanner at Logan. The security people were nice enough about it, however. I'm not carrying much in terms of carry-ons, so things have been smooth.

I completely forgot that "long-haul" flights serve meals. Aer Lingus has a standard meal offering consisting of "chicken" or "beef", neither of which are very good for vegans. Apparently if you call their reservations office in advance of your flight you can order special meals, of which vegan vegetarian is an option. But I definitely don't remember this being mentioned at all (or at least very prominently) during the booking process, so I never thought of checking. I had just written off being able to eat the airline food and brought granola bars and snacks. Apparently this was a wrong assumption.

I was originally going to FlyGlobespan, but ended up changing my mind after experiencing their entirely broken website which didn't allow me to make a booking, and waiting a week for a response to their "feedback form" and never getting any, all the while watching their fares creep up as every day passed. Luckily the flight I ended up getting wasn't too much more expensive, and even allowed me the flexibility to fly into London and out from Glasgow, making it easier to accomplish my plans of visiting Dafydd Harries, Hanna Wallach, and Matthew Garrett in the "other" Cambridge before ending up at Debconf!