Tuesday 3 January 2012

Thought Picnic: Seeking other travel companions

So not I
I cannot say where he came from but I immediately took a dislike to him. There was much to dislike like poking me so he could get through to use the toilet like his bladder was weak, the word please had not visited his vocabulary, if ever.
I did not touch the vegetarian dish I was offered, I had had enough from a month in India, he was soon pointing a finger expectantly at it, presciently I thought he eventually would so I obliged.
I could only remember Janis Joplin's song and sing my own lyrics, O Lord, don't ever let me travel coach class again - the next line will however not be written yet.
Am I to endure another 5 hours of this?
Lord have mercy.
So strange me
Then he gave me an apple, literally thrust it at me, I could not refuse even with my remonstration that I took it.
Taking apples from strangers forced together by the improbability of aircraft seating plans is just not safe for all sorts of reasons.
With my thinking in overdrive after the second bite I was in bulimia extremis as I mustered all emetic strength I never knew I had to put whatever I had bitten of the apple in the embrace of blue ice.
It soon dawned on me the accident of fate that put a Spaniard and an Englishman together, the barrier of language exacerbated by the lack of social graces of the former.
So naughty us
Dear Lord help my lack of humility and forgive the snobbishness that so easily befalls me.
A vegetarian Spaniard? Wonders shall never cease, at which point, nothing more can shock me, maybe I have spoken to soon, we are 8 hours into the flight by Indian time.
Aren't we there yet? Says the little boy in me.
There are better ways to travel than this, I know.
Ah! The captain speaks, Paris in 25 minutes, hoping to land at 5:50AM.
I was asked to fill in a survey, like the receptionist at the training centre in India opined when I was filling in that amateur final feedback form they offered me - it is my favourite hobby.
Well, ask for my opinion and you will get an honest and frank expression of views; surely, that is what they want. I hope so.
Come think of it; are the couples on the plane in Paris for a romantic holiday?
I hear the sound of landing gear being deployed, so there.

2 comments:

Codliveroil said...

Which airline did you travel with? Did you fly directly back to Amsterdam, or did you transit elsewhere?

Whenever I travel, I tend to be singled out by customs and frisked and cross-questioned because they have it in their mind that I'm some sort of drug smuggler (which for the record I'm not).

Now I have been conditioned to expect this whenever I travel. There is not much one can do about it, except answer their questions politely, pack up one's belongings and continue with one's journey.

There is nothing like equal treatment, if there was, then all the passengers on the plane should be subjected to this.

The situation is as it is, and one must learn to accept it gracefully and move on.

Akin Akintayo said...

Hello CodLiverOil,

I used my airmiles for this trip to India, so I travelled out on KLM direct to New Delhi on Business Class but they were asking for twice the number of airmiles for the return leg on Business so I took Coach Class instead which included a 3-hour stop-over in Paris with Air France from New Delhi and then KLM to Amsterdam.

The world of difference between the classes is amazing, I literally slept in a bed on the way out and could hardly get a 9 degree recline of my seat on the way back apart from sitting 10 in a row when I had upper-deck privacy and personal entertainment etc.

I used to have the customs woes when I lived in the UK, hardly ever here I also avail myself of all those priority things like iris-scan and elite status privilege taking most of the stress out of travel.

There is every need to travel well and comfortably, at least, I have managed to spoil myself that way.

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