This is the final part of my journey across the Atlantic from London to Chicago. I was told that it was a beautiful trip but all together I could only see the white clouds and not once did I get an opportunity to see the Atlantic Ocean.
The final stretch is always the most thrilling and for me it was truly a great experience. The most interesting part happened during this leg of the journey. After a grueling 7 hours halt at London we started towards the boarding point. The afternoon had now reached the point where a good deal of activity prevailed even on a Sunday. Almost everybody were somewhere doing something, even if it was only having a coffee at the tea shop or waiting for a connecting flight. While the final calls for boarding were going on, my friend and I rushed to the check-in point and threw our passes as though the airline officials were waiting for a photo finish.
The female took the boarding passes and typed a few keys, a few here is an understatement and the speed was never in her constitution. She came back to us and enquired if we desperately want to be seated together. Both of us opened our mouths at the same time just as if two cats had the misfortune of having their tail stamped at the same moment by a rather heavy pedestrian. We stood for an instant staring at each other with eyes widened in speechless horror; then as if by conditioned reflex, my friend ceased and gave way for me to answer back and I immediately replied a resounding yes. Then she went back to the same old game of typing a few keys without an increase in her typing speed, which can be compared the speed at which my fingernail grows, and came back with new boarding passes. Hence, we were off to board our last leg of this long journey.
Well, at the back of my mind it was running as though that I had won the battle of Waterloo and now returning back for a victory march I was walking towards the gate. Emerging into the flight with a song in my lips, the first thing I saw was a crowd at the entrance. An airhostess then used a superb idea and it seemed to have worked. Yes, using two lines instead of one for deflection of the crowd was used here. A sensible man, I thought, would have realised the outcome of this opening would have stayed in the same place. In order to prove Murphy’s Law wrong, my friend and I changed lines and as usual the other line moved faster.
We then saw all our friends enter the flight through the right gate and hence when our turn came up we walked to the right. At this juncture, we thought that we were really shrewd by not taking the help of the attendant in locating the seats but again she stopped us. It was a shout and followed by a long prevailed silence before we came to a screeching halt. She reaffirmed upon looking into our passes and directed us to the left of the aircraft. I, still with the song in my lips, now was whistling even louder at the fact that she was wrong and she was making more noise at me. I was waiting, like an Owl starring at the night for a grasshopper, for a chance to show my vocal ability. All this while she was winning and escorted, but in actual terms we were lead by our collars, to the business class compartment.
Fortunately, the success of this mini confusion had resulted in cheerfulness enough for us. We were feeling happy and relaxed for once during this journey. We had come expecting a difficult time and it was a relief that to have a business compartment. We settled down comfortably and started to explore the New World of gadgets in front of us, like a kid being let free in a Toy-R(backwards)-Us shop. For once we both agreed that the personalised movie channel was the best of the lot since back in the economy class it was always like a Chinese state prison and now it was like an American correction facility. At least here, we could sit without having the elbow of the next passenger on your chest and sometimes if you have a bulky passenger I think suffocation is on the cards for you. Thus, we both settled down without any argument and soon were watching movies of our own likes.
I liked to explore more freely viz. walking through the aisle and while doing so I noticed a nice good magazine, its solidity had impressed me very much. It was, at a glance, the sort of thing that a novice would take full measures to read it, and not sure if he was equal to its demands. (Mail me the name of the magazine and see if you got it right) I recalled previous triumphs back in Madras library but still couldn’t cast of the odds against me this time and hence I performed what a sensible man would do; walk away without trying for it. By this time, the hostesses were back to their work – serving with a made up smile. Even in the most favourable circumstances would I have been seldom eager to eat, but with just the glimpse of her I was forced to answer yes involuntarily.
She gave us a booklet and left us flipping through it like a 3-year-old through a newspaper, while we were waiting for them to serve what was there. Little did it strike us that the booklet was in fact the menu card and she came back for an order. I, yet again, had to keep the momentum going brilliantly, asked for the menu card. This time the hostess sort to actions since it speaks more than words and pointed to the booklet in my hand. Thus We, as in WE, had a choice of food and in this case was for a 6 course meal.
With six courses of meal and a nice movies of my choice, all said and done, the best place to be in a flight. The day was clam and sunny and I was thoroughly enjoying every inch of the flight. In this respect it differed radically with my friend. We hadn’t paid money yet for the flight and hence the sudden change of class in our ticket would mean that we would have to pay more. It was this that put my friend’s mind the whimsical idea that we had to pay the difference in the prices too. There was no thought of any sordid gain in this journey for him and there was only one thing that could put a stop to it. Yes, SLEEP and after the 6 course meals, it was inevitable for us to fight staying awake. Of course, it seemed to me a most admirable suggestion (SLEEP), one that would solve everything. Hence, after seeing a couple of movies with around ten servings of ice creams we both prepared ourselves to enter into our dreamland.
After the hostess cleaned the place, we were set to go to sleep at the earliest possible situation. Though it was a little stuffed for my friend to sleep fully clothed we had to retire into sleep with them on. We, slept, of course couldn’t say like Sleeping Beauty, but something similar to that. We were later woken up to find that we were just 15 minutes from landing in Chicago. We were involved for the last minutes in filling the I-94 cards and thus ended our flight to America from Madras.
That's All FOLKS!!!
The final stretch is always the most thrilling and for me it was truly a great experience. The most interesting part happened during this leg of the journey. After a grueling 7 hours halt at London we started towards the boarding point. The afternoon had now reached the point where a good deal of activity prevailed even on a Sunday. Almost everybody were somewhere doing something, even if it was only having a coffee at the tea shop or waiting for a connecting flight. While the final calls for boarding were going on, my friend and I rushed to the check-in point and threw our passes as though the airline officials were waiting for a photo finish.
The female took the boarding passes and typed a few keys, a few here is an understatement and the speed was never in her constitution. She came back to us and enquired if we desperately want to be seated together. Both of us opened our mouths at the same time just as if two cats had the misfortune of having their tail stamped at the same moment by a rather heavy pedestrian. We stood for an instant staring at each other with eyes widened in speechless horror; then as if by conditioned reflex, my friend ceased and gave way for me to answer back and I immediately replied a resounding yes. Then she went back to the same old game of typing a few keys without an increase in her typing speed, which can be compared the speed at which my fingernail grows, and came back with new boarding passes. Hence, we were off to board our last leg of this long journey.
Well, at the back of my mind it was running as though that I had won the battle of Waterloo and now returning back for a victory march I was walking towards the gate. Emerging into the flight with a song in my lips, the first thing I saw was a crowd at the entrance. An airhostess then used a superb idea and it seemed to have worked. Yes, using two lines instead of one for deflection of the crowd was used here. A sensible man, I thought, would have realised the outcome of this opening would have stayed in the same place. In order to prove Murphy’s Law wrong, my friend and I changed lines and as usual the other line moved faster.
We then saw all our friends enter the flight through the right gate and hence when our turn came up we walked to the right. At this juncture, we thought that we were really shrewd by not taking the help of the attendant in locating the seats but again she stopped us. It was a shout and followed by a long prevailed silence before we came to a screeching halt. She reaffirmed upon looking into our passes and directed us to the left of the aircraft. I, still with the song in my lips, now was whistling even louder at the fact that she was wrong and she was making more noise at me. I was waiting, like an Owl starring at the night for a grasshopper, for a chance to show my vocal ability. All this while she was winning and escorted, but in actual terms we were lead by our collars, to the business class compartment.
Fortunately, the success of this mini confusion had resulted in cheerfulness enough for us. We were feeling happy and relaxed for once during this journey. We had come expecting a difficult time and it was a relief that to have a business compartment. We settled down comfortably and started to explore the New World of gadgets in front of us, like a kid being let free in a Toy-R(backwards)-Us shop. For once we both agreed that the personalised movie channel was the best of the lot since back in the economy class it was always like a Chinese state prison and now it was like an American correction facility. At least here, we could sit without having the elbow of the next passenger on your chest and sometimes if you have a bulky passenger I think suffocation is on the cards for you. Thus, we both settled down without any argument and soon were watching movies of our own likes.
I liked to explore more freely viz. walking through the aisle and while doing so I noticed a nice good magazine, its solidity had impressed me very much. It was, at a glance, the sort of thing that a novice would take full measures to read it, and not sure if he was equal to its demands. (Mail me the name of the magazine and see if you got it right) I recalled previous triumphs back in Madras library but still couldn’t cast of the odds against me this time and hence I performed what a sensible man would do; walk away without trying for it. By this time, the hostesses were back to their work – serving with a made up smile. Even in the most favourable circumstances would I have been seldom eager to eat, but with just the glimpse of her I was forced to answer yes involuntarily.
She gave us a booklet and left us flipping through it like a 3-year-old through a newspaper, while we were waiting for them to serve what was there. Little did it strike us that the booklet was in fact the menu card and she came back for an order. I, yet again, had to keep the momentum going brilliantly, asked for the menu card. This time the hostess sort to actions since it speaks more than words and pointed to the booklet in my hand. Thus We, as in WE, had a choice of food and in this case was for a 6 course meal.
With six courses of meal and a nice movies of my choice, all said and done, the best place to be in a flight. The day was clam and sunny and I was thoroughly enjoying every inch of the flight. In this respect it differed radically with my friend. We hadn’t paid money yet for the flight and hence the sudden change of class in our ticket would mean that we would have to pay more. It was this that put my friend’s mind the whimsical idea that we had to pay the difference in the prices too. There was no thought of any sordid gain in this journey for him and there was only one thing that could put a stop to it. Yes, SLEEP and after the 6 course meals, it was inevitable for us to fight staying awake. Of course, it seemed to me a most admirable suggestion (SLEEP), one that would solve everything. Hence, after seeing a couple of movies with around ten servings of ice creams we both prepared ourselves to enter into our dreamland.
After the hostess cleaned the place, we were set to go to sleep at the earliest possible situation. Though it was a little stuffed for my friend to sleep fully clothed we had to retire into sleep with them on. We, slept, of course couldn’t say like Sleeping Beauty, but something similar to that. We were later woken up to find that we were just 15 minutes from landing in Chicago. We were involved for the last minutes in filling the I-94 cards and thus ended our flight to America from Madras.
That's All FOLKS!!!
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