2 posts tagged “flight”
Sydney to Bangkok
Premium economy is SO worth it… unless you were in our seats. Or the seats behind us. In fact, especially the seats behind us. None of the reading lights worked on our side of the premium economy cabin, our VOD didn't work (but would play whatever was on), neither did the couples' in the seats behind us... and the woman behind us was getting cold water dripped on her from the air conditioning! Suck!!
Plus, it transpired that whenever I plugged my Mac into the power socket, it shorted out the entire entertainment circuit in the cabin. Apparently Boeing plugs aren't set up to take such "powerful" computers. (It's more than a year old and was bottom of the line back then.) But then the same thing happened when I plugged in my super-ancient, super-shit three year old laptop.
This sounds like complaining but really I'm not. The cabin manager, Kerry, was extremely helpful.
In fact, a couple of hours into the flight when I ran out of battery and I lied about being a writer who actually had to do some work on this flight (I really just wanted to watch the DVDs that I had packed specially) he took me all through business class and first class to see if there were any plugs that worked. This was just so he could find somewhere to charge it. I wasn't getting an upgrade. He wasn't that nice.
Oh my god, and first class is freaky. I wasn't even sure if I was still on the plane anymore. We emerged up the stairs into this very dark room. You could just make out a few pods spaced out evenly like alien eggs -but none of the occupants. I was pretty drunk so the fact that I remember it as being a little misty is probably because it was like a scene from Alien and I have subsequently collapsed both memories together in my head.
Then this woman (the flight attendant) emerged from out of the darkness at the front of the plane, abruptly whispering at us about what it was we were doing there. (The guardian of the eggs!)
Yeah, so travelling first class must be something like returning to the womb... But with champagne.
Anyway, Kerry worked out that if we removed the battery from the Mac or the acer, my "super computers" wouldn't short the entire plane and lead to us dropping out of the sky over South East Asia.
Here's something that's a little weird... I have absolutely no recollection of dinner. None. According to James I was quite lucid, but I must have been pretty wasted or something. And what's weird is that I don't get memory loss from intoxication. I do recall having a weird mental freak out whilst listening to the ipod after dinner so maybe the whole "changing my life forever" thing temporarily snapped my mind or something?
Nah, it was probably the booze.
When we landed in Bangkok we were told that we didn't have to get off the plane if we wanted to. But we totally wanted to because we stank like we had been holidaying inside a dead yak.
So we raced off to the Qantas club, having been told that the plane will be re-boarding in half an hour. That should be just enough time. Of course the Qantas Club was ages away so we worked up a sweat doing that "airport waddle" that everyone does when they're trying to walk fast with multiple bags but not actually break into a run because they don't want everyone else to think they're holding up a plane or are lost in any way.
We get there, shower while two middle-aged thai women waited just outside the frosted glass of each shower cubicle. (It was weird, but not weird enough to stop me. If they see anything, well, that's their problem. I hope that hadn't recently eaten.)
I finished before James and waited out in the main area by the bar.
The bar!
Must. Drink. Free. Alcohol.
Factoring in that I only had a few minutes before James got out, and that we had to get back into a shaky, metal object, and that I was wearing winter clothes in the tropics, and that I had just brushed my teeth... Wine was out of the question.
But there wasn't enough time for a beer.
Bailey's Irish Cream! On the rocks.
I had time to throw two of them back before James emerged and we had to airport waddle off. It made sense at the time but, to be completely honest, I wouldn't recommend it.
Bangkok to London
After Bangkok they turned the lights out.. I took a sleeping pill and
went to sleep. Apparently you are supposed to sleep for six hours and
then wake up on the dot.
Mine lasted exactly three hours and then I was completely awake and lucid. (“three, two, one… you're back in the room.”) This is not surprising as I managed to build up a tolerance to rohypnol in my teens -and that's an illegal date rape drug.
Anyway, the VOD didn’t work, the plug for the laptop didn’t work and neither did the reading lights plus I felt completely awake.
I was literally trapped in the dark slowly going insane.
This only lasted an hour (they re-set everybody's in-seat entertainment just for me. Suck it!) and then it was back to Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Ireland, England and Wales. (Incidentally a really handy intro to being a foreigner in England.) But I made sure I mentioned it to several of the cabin crew during that hour of dark boredom. This has relevance later. Read on.
Oh yeah. Our flight plan took us over Western Pakistan, Northern Afghanistan, up into the Middle East, over Iran, skirting under the Caspian Sea -just missing Georgia- before flying in through Eastern Europe.
We literally toured the conflict zones of the world. I found that hilarious.
Anyway, so we finally make it over Eastern Europe and I swap seats with James (as agreed) to get the window. Being that I had never seen Europe before in my life I was extremely excited.
And then disappointed.
Clouds.
Clouds to the horizon. Ain't never seen nothing like it. We literally saw NOTHING until Germany, which we only caught a glimpse of.
Also only a few glimpses of North West Europe, one little patch of farmland in England and then… London.
In the peculiar way that typifies the English weather, it was somehow a lovely summer day underneath the thick cumulus blanket that completely blotted out the sun.
And it was worth the wait.
There was an audible gasp as the plane dropped below the clouds. The
guys sitting in front of us were traveling on business and they fly
regularly into London. I eavesdropped as they remarked on never having
seen it look that good from the air in fifteen years.
It was way better than this but I didn't take any photos, did I? So this is someone else's shitty (compared to mine) arrival in London town. But you get the idea/
The impressed guys in front of us even got some of the lesser known tourist destinations wrong/didn’t recognize them, it was that clear. But Gordon, the big fat nerd who has spent the last eight weeks reading guidebooks cover-to-cover got them right. (“Oooh. Look. That must be some kind of palace.” It’s Hampton Court you losers!)
So yay. Best landing ever.
Oh, and as a result of the snafu with our seats we each got a hundred bucks worth of duty free gift vouchers for anything in the in-flight magazine. We both picked things to the total value of exactly one hundred dollars. I love being that passive aggressive.
So thanks Qantas!
Your planes explode mid-air and are somehow less sophisticated than my three year old, broken laptop but we got some great noise canceling headphones and a universal power adaptor out of it.
Yes, thank you. I WILL be renewing my Qantas Club membership.
Okay that title was pretty much just for Bill and Dan -but feel free to ask me about it. Anyway today has been a day of many new beginnings.
Bought my first vodafone prepay card in YEARS -and yes, it is still preposterously expensive. How do people in south Auckland afford both P and cell phone credit? Robbing liquor stores can't be that lucrative. (Maybe I'm doing it wrong?)
The other thing we did today was actually buy our plane tickets! In retrospect I probably should have opened with that rather than a pre-paid cell phone card because it's slightly more interesting.
We'll be flying Qantas via Sydney and Bangkok. Why? Because I have a ludicrous amount of points that I have accrued over the years and we want to upgrade from economy to 'premium economy'. (I assume that means they peel the foil pack on your microwaved feces for you? Because some times that foil can be hot.)
Also we get to use the lounges because of our Qantas Club membership and the only way to make a 27 hour flight bearable is to stop several times so that both you and the plane can refuel without being cut off by snooty/lazy air hostesses. I don't care if some of them are male these days. Hostesses!
Oh yeah, the date is July 20. And we're flying (wait for it) QF 1. Should be easy to remember. It's just one number and I also will go QF 1 about seventy or eighty times in the 'dedicated premium economy bathroom' during the flight. What is it about airplanes that make me pee so much? Is it the heroic amounts of alcohol I drink before and during the flight? Or the one small bottle of water I also drink in the hopes of cancelling out said alcohol?
Poverty Meal 2 Update:
I have good news on the second poverty meal. (Tonight we ate chilli con carne but I just obeyed the directions on the Old El Paso pack so it isn't worth blogging)
We tried some of the White Trash Fudge last night and it made us nauseous. Somehow those extra 12 hours do more than make the whole thing solid. Because it was our classy dessert tonight (chilli and white trash fudge. I wonder what the poor people are doing right now?) and it was good!
So that's two from two.
