Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Flight of the Endurance
Flight Time: 0hr:30min
I felt quite pleased when they announced the final pre-flight check for KLM Flight #602 (Boeing 747-400) and there was an empty middle seat between me and my friendly (but not too social) row-mate. We nodded to each other with satisfaction as the door closed and our extra space was secure. I was in my preferred aisle seat. I could actually see (just barely) the ancient CRT video monitor hanging from the roof of the cabin, six rows up. Slated for the next 10 hour's entertainment: two movies I hadn’t seen, plus an apparently recent BBC news feed (showing Kerry’s Edwards announcement even before we took off).
Then the baby two rows back started crying. Annoying, but already the engine drone masks it a little, and I've got movies to watch. And there’s an empty middle seat. A small price to pay…
Except that the arm-rest control-console doesn't seem to be responding. Interesting. Probably because it's early in the flight, and they haven't switched on the entertainment system.
Except that the BBC is on. And people seem to be paying attention to it. Via their headphones.
The flight attendant comes by with the first round of drinks. I mention the problem. He looks a little dour. Says something about, "checking up front - later." But there's veiled sadness in his eyes. I’m not sure if it's pity for me, or (more likely) the depressing realization that we're hardly off the ground and already he's got a problem passenger to deal with.
I have a feeling I'm out of luck. No movies for me. And, I now realize, no over-head light, either. (The light-switch is part of the same console.) Which means no reading once it gets dark. (My high-tech/low-fashion LED head-band reading light, which I had secretly suspected I'd haul around for 3-weeks and never use, could already be put into active duty, if only it wasn't packed away in the cargo hold 10 feet below.) So all night, I'll have no movies, no TV, and no reading. And of course I can't sleep on planes.
There's a brilliant irony woven into this technological short-coming: the console also houses the "attendant call" button. Not that I'd resort to using it, but it is a convenient coincidence that the means to ask for help is incapacitated by the problem itself.
(All the more absurd - the universe isn't taunting me with great cinema - it's toying with my patience and denying my cravings with the likes of "The Laws of Attraction" and "50 First Dates". These are the films I'm pining for? It would seem so. Never before has Adam Sandler seemed more unattainable.
At least they seem to know about my vegetarian meal. We'll see if it really appears. Probably be a nut-loaf with a marzipan dessert. (I can keep an eye on this, though, because while there's an empty middle seat to my left, the Galley is to my right. Along with all the rattle and bombast of a restaurant kitchen.)
----
Flight Time: 01hr:41min
"Friends" plays silently on the video. Hopefully it's a an episode featuring the antic slapstick of Mssrs. Schwimer, Perry, and LeBlanc. Because I certainly won't be enjoying their trademark wit and sly pop-cultural meta-speak.
----
Flight Time: 01hr:50min
I'm feeling quite powerful. It seems I was the first to point out a problem that's plaguing a large section of the plane. Now the smartly dressed flight crew is going row by row, assessing the extent of the malady. I even suggested at one point that the system might need re-starting (the attendant politely dismissed such a silly idea) but now - it's come to pass. The problems of the plebian coach class have even cast a wrench into the workings of the upper-echelons - the entire A/V system is being shut down. The announcement kindly pointed out the problem to the coach passengers, then apologized profusely to the business/first class customers for shutting down their interactive entertainment terminals.
It's fun trying try to make out the techno-speak scattered in amongst the Dutch that the crew speaks as they discuss the problem. My galley-side seat keeps my finger on the pulse of the entire operation. Occasionally they gesture towards me: the representative for this part of the plane, the instigator that dared to ask for the “first-rate entertainment” promised by the in-flight-magazine. People with stripes on their epaulettes are now involved. Eyeing me.
I'm wondering what scheme I should set into motion next. There must be some other way to bring the upper class (literally above me - I'm sitting just behind the eye-of-a-needle-narrow stair-case that leads to first-class heaven) down to our level.
To bring us all together in adversity.
And so far we're only 2 hours into the flight.
----
Flight Time: 02hr:05min
Just had a chat with the epauletted one. I'm their go-to guy. The tester. The Beefeater. The one that doesn't mind trying the light-switch button again and again and again.
But whose side am I on? The passengers or the crew?
----
Flight Time 02hr:41min
Got excited for a moment by the prospect of subtitles scrolling at the bottom of the video screen. But they’re in Dutch. And no techno-vernacular to hunt for.
----
Flight Time 03hr:08min
Very depressed. The light outside is dwindling at an unnatural rate as we chase the sun across the globe. They've turned off the overhead cabin lights. There are accent lights along the side of the cabin, so my row-mate in the window-seat can continue devouring his John Grisham, but I'm left in the dark.
The lights in the galley are on, and I thought if they just left the curtain open a little, I’d be able to read. But when I smiled and asked, the stewardess explained rather curtly that they needed their privacy. (So they can have a little party, by the sound of it.) And I wouldn't want to inconvenience them.
From now on the crew is my enemy. They've abandoned me, and let me down. Not even an apology. Just a curt "No it is not working. No lights. No movie. Not working."
I suppose they think I should just sleep it off.
If only they knew.
7 hours to go.
----
Flight Time 03hr:46min
I'm considering permanent occupation of the lavatory. It's bright and light for reading, more spacious than my tight aisle seat (with my comrade in front now fully reclined) and it has yet to develop that aroma unique to airplane W/C's on transatlantic flights.
And I thought I might even keep from inconveniencing people in line, since it's usually "Against FAA policy to form a line at the forward lavatories" but, being an international flight, there seems to be no such restriction. (Apparently international pilots can fend for themselves.)
----
Flight Time 04hr:12min
My row-mate has suddenly become very social.
----
Flight Time 07hr:20min
Things haven’t improved. While I stew about the lack of distractions, I try to console myself with thoughts of the poor transatlantic travelers of the 16th and 17th century, packed into the holds of ship with very little food, let alone light and Pierce Brosnan. Meanwhile, the people behind me haven't even noticed the technical deficiency.
A Polish Californian and a woman from the Netherlands are flirting at maximum volume. Now they’ve been joined by an Iranian woman who's moved up from the row behind (and repeatedly knees and rocks my chair), they’ve somehow brought the conversation round to touring Holland, so I listen in (as if I have a choice) to see if there are any tips for my impending visit:
The Cal-Pole innocently asked if, since he has a five hour layover, he should try to get into the city from Schiphol airport.
She (the Dutch woman) replied that it would be a mistake, that the Dutch trains are horrible and unreliable, that you'd have to allow at least an hour and a half each way, that you must be back at the airport two hours before your flight, that you have to get your luggage, which is always slow because the people handling the baggage are incompetent (i.e. foreigners) (missing the fact that he's connecting and won't have any luggage to get in the first place) and so 5 hours minus 1.5 hours minus 1.5 hours minus 2 hours means that he wouldn’t have any time at all. (By this logic, the poor man's time in the terminal will whiz by in a flash - it's practically Einsteinian in it’s revolutionary time-shifting).
But this did give her leave to explain why she hates Amsterdam...
According to her, Amsterdam is an embarrassment. All the Dutch hate it. None of the Dutch have any connection with what happens in Amsterdam. They deny it’s part of their country. Only people from the North like Amsterdam. You can't compare people from the south to the north. People in the north are just stupid.
But if you must go to Amsterdam, never make eye-contact. She’s never been to Amsterdam and not dragged off somewhere to buy drugs. It's all about drugs. They follow you. She has never been to Amsterdam and not been followed. Everywhere. In the streets. In the parks.
With a bizarrely transparent nod to her Angelino/Persian audience she asks, “Does this happen in L.A.? Or New York? Or Tehran???? No. Only in Amsterdam.”
She continues: In Amsterdam (even in the schools), most people are on drugs by 10:30 AM. Everyone she knows does drugs. And is usually forced into the sex-trade. It’s because people don't want to be bourgeois. The want to be interesting, and different. So they’re all do drugs and work in the sex-trade.
The drunken Dutch woman doesn’t like drugs. Because she’s hyper. Hyper people don’t like drugs. Only slow, yellow people like drugs. Joints make her feel sleepy. She doesn't want to be sleepy
This continues on ad nauseam, always comparing the vile city of Amsterdam and its inhabitants to L.A., New York… AND IRAN! Naturally. The three main reference points for acceptable behavior.
All this makes me wonder what's up with the friends I'm "risking it all" to go see in Amsterdam while I'm on my layover. I guess they must have been hiding their drug-addled, stalking, sex-slaver existences from me, probably out of embarrassment. I hate to think of them hiding a secret like this. I won't judge them. I hope that they know this.
I'll try to get to the bottom of this when I land. If the trains are still running on tracks. And I’m not dragged off to an opium den…
4 hours to go...
----
Flight Time 07hr:37min
One thing I have to say about KLM: they may not know how to keep their planes running, but they don't let you starve. My excellent veggie lasagna showed up quickly, followed by bread, chips, drinks, snacks, drinks, and then the cookies & ice-cream cart.
Plus, they leave an open snack cart at the front of each section, with apples, pretzels and Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. I visit often.
The evil crew clearly knows that the way to an army's heart is through its stomach. I'm typing in the dark, in silence, being shaken physically and verbally by the drunken row behind me, but how can I complain when I've got Milano cookies.
They just tried to give me Cognac. It must be the Cognac hour. So confused.
----
Flight Time 09:03min
The plane has suddenly woken up, as if a crowd of sleeping drunkards had a pail of water tossed on them. But in this case, the pail of water is a boxed breakfast and a silver-foil wrapped "hot portion" of something.
I, of course, get my food first (one of the benefits of being an annoying vegetarian "special meal" person) - my hot-portion is, for some reason, a southwestern Tamale with vegetable hash and potatoes. Served with a dry bagel and a little container of orange slices.
But I eat it all dutifully, thankfully, thinking of those days gone by, the dreaded middle passage and the runny gruel slopped down between the grating twice a day. I am thankful for my food. And time has long since stopped being relevant, so why pretend that this is breakfast? Why not a Mexican feast? With a bagel.
Except that everyone else is getting their meals now: lovely steaming hot egg and toast sandwiches, with melting cheese. And in their boxes: creamy, cold strawberry yogurt and melon.
Is this the crew's doing? Have they slipped me a left-over dinner entrée for breakfast? Was that vegetable hash even vegetable? Looked a little like tuna salad. They’re fighting back. From a position of power.
(Actually, this is always the drawback of “special-meals” - you eat first, and then you’re left to wish that you had what everyone else has. But I've eaten enough, and I'm certainly not going to make any more waves with the crew. They’ve beaten me into submission.)
"Mr. Bean" on the silent television, looming high overhead. Perfect material for the aurally-challenged. Except that I'm not that big a fan of "Mr Bean" (I prefer Mr. Atkinson when he has Richard Curtis along for the ride, providing snide comments and snappy, history-laden dialog. But that would just make me bitter.)
Only an hour to go. I think. Exhausted.
----
Flight Time 10hr:12min
We’ve landed. The Odyssey is over. I race to the front, eager to leave this place, and even more determined to prove the bitter Dutch woman wrong: The trains will run on time. I will artfully dodge the stalkers and the flesh peddlers. I will visit my friends in Leiden and return, unscathed, for my connecting flight to Istanbul.
8 hours from now…
|
I felt quite pleased when they announced the final pre-flight check for KLM Flight #602 (Boeing 747-400) and there was an empty middle seat between me and my friendly (but not too social) row-mate. We nodded to each other with satisfaction as the door closed and our extra space was secure. I was in my preferred aisle seat. I could actually see (just barely) the ancient CRT video monitor hanging from the roof of the cabin, six rows up. Slated for the next 10 hour's entertainment: two movies I hadn’t seen, plus an apparently recent BBC news feed (showing Kerry’s Edwards announcement even before we took off).
Then the baby two rows back started crying. Annoying, but already the engine drone masks it a little, and I've got movies to watch. And there’s an empty middle seat. A small price to pay…
Except that the arm-rest control-console doesn't seem to be responding. Interesting. Probably because it's early in the flight, and they haven't switched on the entertainment system.
Except that the BBC is on. And people seem to be paying attention to it. Via their headphones.
The flight attendant comes by with the first round of drinks. I mention the problem. He looks a little dour. Says something about, "checking up front - later." But there's veiled sadness in his eyes. I’m not sure if it's pity for me, or (more likely) the depressing realization that we're hardly off the ground and already he's got a problem passenger to deal with.
I have a feeling I'm out of luck. No movies for me. And, I now realize, no over-head light, either. (The light-switch is part of the same console.) Which means no reading once it gets dark. (My high-tech/low-fashion LED head-band reading light, which I had secretly suspected I'd haul around for 3-weeks and never use, could already be put into active duty, if only it wasn't packed away in the cargo hold 10 feet below.) So all night, I'll have no movies, no TV, and no reading. And of course I can't sleep on planes.
There's a brilliant irony woven into this technological short-coming: the console also houses the "attendant call" button. Not that I'd resort to using it, but it is a convenient coincidence that the means to ask for help is incapacitated by the problem itself.
(All the more absurd - the universe isn't taunting me with great cinema - it's toying with my patience and denying my cravings with the likes of "The Laws of Attraction" and "50 First Dates". These are the films I'm pining for? It would seem so. Never before has Adam Sandler seemed more unattainable.
At least they seem to know about my vegetarian meal. We'll see if it really appears. Probably be a nut-loaf with a marzipan dessert. (I can keep an eye on this, though, because while there's an empty middle seat to my left, the Galley is to my right. Along with all the rattle and bombast of a restaurant kitchen.)
----
Flight Time: 01hr:41min
"Friends" plays silently on the video. Hopefully it's a an episode featuring the antic slapstick of Mssrs. Schwimer, Perry, and LeBlanc. Because I certainly won't be enjoying their trademark wit and sly pop-cultural meta-speak.
----
Flight Time: 01hr:50min
I'm feeling quite powerful. It seems I was the first to point out a problem that's plaguing a large section of the plane. Now the smartly dressed flight crew is going row by row, assessing the extent of the malady. I even suggested at one point that the system might need re-starting (the attendant politely dismissed such a silly idea) but now - it's come to pass. The problems of the plebian coach class have even cast a wrench into the workings of the upper-echelons - the entire A/V system is being shut down. The announcement kindly pointed out the problem to the coach passengers, then apologized profusely to the business/first class customers for shutting down their interactive entertainment terminals.
It's fun trying try to make out the techno-speak scattered in amongst the Dutch that the crew speaks as they discuss the problem. My galley-side seat keeps my finger on the pulse of the entire operation. Occasionally they gesture towards me: the representative for this part of the plane, the instigator that dared to ask for the “first-rate entertainment” promised by the in-flight-magazine. People with stripes on their epaulettes are now involved. Eyeing me.
I'm wondering what scheme I should set into motion next. There must be some other way to bring the upper class (literally above me - I'm sitting just behind the eye-of-a-needle-narrow stair-case that leads to first-class heaven) down to our level.
To bring us all together in adversity.
And so far we're only 2 hours into the flight.
----
Flight Time: 02hr:05min
Just had a chat with the epauletted one. I'm their go-to guy. The tester. The Beefeater. The one that doesn't mind trying the light-switch button again and again and again.
But whose side am I on? The passengers or the crew?
----
Flight Time 02hr:41min
Got excited for a moment by the prospect of subtitles scrolling at the bottom of the video screen. But they’re in Dutch. And no techno-vernacular to hunt for.
----
Flight Time 03hr:08min
Very depressed. The light outside is dwindling at an unnatural rate as we chase the sun across the globe. They've turned off the overhead cabin lights. There are accent lights along the side of the cabin, so my row-mate in the window-seat can continue devouring his John Grisham, but I'm left in the dark.
The lights in the galley are on, and I thought if they just left the curtain open a little, I’d be able to read. But when I smiled and asked, the stewardess explained rather curtly that they needed their privacy. (So they can have a little party, by the sound of it.) And I wouldn't want to inconvenience them.
From now on the crew is my enemy. They've abandoned me, and let me down. Not even an apology. Just a curt "No it is not working. No lights. No movie. Not working."
I suppose they think I should just sleep it off.
If only they knew.
7 hours to go.
----
Flight Time 03hr:46min
I'm considering permanent occupation of the lavatory. It's bright and light for reading, more spacious than my tight aisle seat (with my comrade in front now fully reclined) and it has yet to develop that aroma unique to airplane W/C's on transatlantic flights.
And I thought I might even keep from inconveniencing people in line, since it's usually "Against FAA policy to form a line at the forward lavatories" but, being an international flight, there seems to be no such restriction. (Apparently international pilots can fend for themselves.)
----
Flight Time 04hr:12min
My row-mate has suddenly become very social.
----
Flight Time 07hr:20min
Things haven’t improved. While I stew about the lack of distractions, I try to console myself with thoughts of the poor transatlantic travelers of the 16th and 17th century, packed into the holds of ship with very little food, let alone light and Pierce Brosnan. Meanwhile, the people behind me haven't even noticed the technical deficiency.
A Polish Californian and a woman from the Netherlands are flirting at maximum volume. Now they’ve been joined by an Iranian woman who's moved up from the row behind (and repeatedly knees and rocks my chair), they’ve somehow brought the conversation round to touring Holland, so I listen in (as if I have a choice) to see if there are any tips for my impending visit:
The Cal-Pole innocently asked if, since he has a five hour layover, he should try to get into the city from Schiphol airport.
She (the Dutch woman) replied that it would be a mistake, that the Dutch trains are horrible and unreliable, that you'd have to allow at least an hour and a half each way, that you must be back at the airport two hours before your flight, that you have to get your luggage, which is always slow because the people handling the baggage are incompetent (i.e. foreigners) (missing the fact that he's connecting and won't have any luggage to get in the first place) and so 5 hours minus 1.5 hours minus 1.5 hours minus 2 hours means that he wouldn’t have any time at all. (By this logic, the poor man's time in the terminal will whiz by in a flash - it's practically Einsteinian in it’s revolutionary time-shifting).
But this did give her leave to explain why she hates Amsterdam...
According to her, Amsterdam is an embarrassment. All the Dutch hate it. None of the Dutch have any connection with what happens in Amsterdam. They deny it’s part of their country. Only people from the North like Amsterdam. You can't compare people from the south to the north. People in the north are just stupid.
But if you must go to Amsterdam, never make eye-contact. She’s never been to Amsterdam and not dragged off somewhere to buy drugs. It's all about drugs. They follow you. She has never been to Amsterdam and not been followed. Everywhere. In the streets. In the parks.
With a bizarrely transparent nod to her Angelino/Persian audience she asks, “Does this happen in L.A.? Or New York? Or Tehran???? No. Only in Amsterdam.”
She continues: In Amsterdam (even in the schools), most people are on drugs by 10:30 AM. Everyone she knows does drugs. And is usually forced into the sex-trade. It’s because people don't want to be bourgeois. The want to be interesting, and different. So they’re all do drugs and work in the sex-trade.
The drunken Dutch woman doesn’t like drugs. Because she’s hyper. Hyper people don’t like drugs. Only slow, yellow people like drugs. Joints make her feel sleepy. She doesn't want to be sleepy
This continues on ad nauseam, always comparing the vile city of Amsterdam and its inhabitants to L.A., New York… AND IRAN! Naturally. The three main reference points for acceptable behavior.
All this makes me wonder what's up with the friends I'm "risking it all" to go see in Amsterdam while I'm on my layover. I guess they must have been hiding their drug-addled, stalking, sex-slaver existences from me, probably out of embarrassment. I hate to think of them hiding a secret like this. I won't judge them. I hope that they know this.
I'll try to get to the bottom of this when I land. If the trains are still running on tracks. And I’m not dragged off to an opium den…
4 hours to go...
----
Flight Time 07hr:37min
One thing I have to say about KLM: they may not know how to keep their planes running, but they don't let you starve. My excellent veggie lasagna showed up quickly, followed by bread, chips, drinks, snacks, drinks, and then the cookies & ice-cream cart.
Plus, they leave an open snack cart at the front of each section, with apples, pretzels and Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. I visit often.
The evil crew clearly knows that the way to an army's heart is through its stomach. I'm typing in the dark, in silence, being shaken physically and verbally by the drunken row behind me, but how can I complain when I've got Milano cookies.
They just tried to give me Cognac. It must be the Cognac hour. So confused.
----
Flight Time 09:03min
The plane has suddenly woken up, as if a crowd of sleeping drunkards had a pail of water tossed on them. But in this case, the pail of water is a boxed breakfast and a silver-foil wrapped "hot portion" of something.
I, of course, get my food first (one of the benefits of being an annoying vegetarian "special meal" person) - my hot-portion is, for some reason, a southwestern Tamale with vegetable hash and potatoes. Served with a dry bagel and a little container of orange slices.
But I eat it all dutifully, thankfully, thinking of those days gone by, the dreaded middle passage and the runny gruel slopped down between the grating twice a day. I am thankful for my food. And time has long since stopped being relevant, so why pretend that this is breakfast? Why not a Mexican feast? With a bagel.
Except that everyone else is getting their meals now: lovely steaming hot egg and toast sandwiches, with melting cheese. And in their boxes: creamy, cold strawberry yogurt and melon.
Is this the crew's doing? Have they slipped me a left-over dinner entrée for breakfast? Was that vegetable hash even vegetable? Looked a little like tuna salad. They’re fighting back. From a position of power.
(Actually, this is always the drawback of “special-meals” - you eat first, and then you’re left to wish that you had what everyone else has. But I've eaten enough, and I'm certainly not going to make any more waves with the crew. They’ve beaten me into submission.)
"Mr. Bean" on the silent television, looming high overhead. Perfect material for the aurally-challenged. Except that I'm not that big a fan of "Mr Bean" (I prefer Mr. Atkinson when he has Richard Curtis along for the ride, providing snide comments and snappy, history-laden dialog. But that would just make me bitter.)
Only an hour to go. I think. Exhausted.
----
Flight Time 10hr:12min
We’ve landed. The Odyssey is over. I race to the front, eager to leave this place, and even more determined to prove the bitter Dutch woman wrong: The trains will run on time. I will artfully dodge the stalkers and the flesh peddlers. I will visit my friends in Leiden and return, unscathed, for my connecting flight to Istanbul.
8 hours from now…
|
