PROLOGUE: I love to fly, and it shows.

On this amazing Tuesday, January 20, I am sitting in front of the plasma TV screens in London Heathrow Airport experiencing history being made. Slightly stunned, I can scarcely believe that this life-changing moment finally has come.

Yes ... at last I am traveling international first class!

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This is a trip that was built around a frequent-flyer award. Kind of.

Here's the sweet, sweet deal: front-of-the-plane travel to/from Sydney on British Airways. Nice but unremarkable, right? Except that British has no direct service to Australia from here, so I fly from Seattle to London to Singapore to Sydney -- just about the longest single award trip you can possibly take. But it's International First Class! Which I imagine to be like 40 hours at a combination spa/bistro/open bar.

British began phasing out this extravagant award last summer, just as I hit the magic 150K miles required. So I redeemed that sucker tout de suite, figuring that it would get me close enough to visit my young arts scholar halfway through his stay in neighboring Indonesia. "Neighboring" meaning 3,000 miles distant from Sydney. Which is sort of like flying into New York and then popping over to "neighboring" Oregon.

Except that my ultra-meticulous planning did not take into account that countries have things called visas that limit tourists to a certain number of days -- 30, in the case of Indonesia. And I was envisioning a 45-day Indo-adventure. Oops. But wait: ANOTHER country down that way also has it's own special visa requirements that I learned about at the airport. More about that later.

Kicking around Sydney for a week or so MIGHT have been an option if I had ever in my life said: "Gee, I'd love to visit Sydney someday!" Which has never happened. So I needed elsewhere to hang for 10 days ... preferably someplace with really terrific Thai food.

That's right: after 40 hours aloft or in airports, I hop right back on the bird for a nine-hour flight from Sydney to Bangkok, almost 5,000 miles back in the direction I just came from. In Coach, this time. Honest, I really did plan it this way.

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Concerning the International First Class experience: It is absolutely everything I imagined it to be, and then some; more about that later. Right now, I want to watch Barack.


First Class lounge, Heathrow Airport.