NOT ALL AIRLINES ARE EQUAL

One of the last long flights we took inspired me to write this blog entry. I cannot get over how different the flying experience can be depending on the airline you are taking and the nationality of the majority of your travel mates. If this blog ends up sounding racist, well sorry but we have now flown enough times with a variety of carriers to be able to form a pretty solid opinion.

1. North American/European Airlines: The seats in general are as generous in size as you get. The new Lufthansa has a small flight of stairs in the middle of the plane that takes you down to a large enough room to hold about twenty people (even though there was never more than three or four) and eight bathrooms, there was always one available. They were roomy and pleasant.
The food is somewhat tasty and very very small. All the seats usually have tvs on the backs and lots of entertainment to choose from, in english. The passengers are quiet and there is very little eye contact. Babies may cry, but not for long. Stewardesses are male and female and friendly and unobtrusive. Everybody embarks and disembarks politely and in a timely fair fashion.

2. East Indian airlines: The planes are older, seats are small, the fabric is worn and not as clean, the planes are hot hot hot with no air. In the airport at your gate while you wait, you notice that your fellow travellers are in large groups, not many individuals or couples, just huge families with babies, kids and really old grampa and grammas. The golf cart type people movers reserved for the handicapped are always full of older East Indians (that is in any airport, anytime we have noticed). Again, at the gate waiting area you also notice that these large groups have an extrordinairy amount of paraphanalia with them...strollers, car seats, blankets, bags of food, tote bags, shopping bags, suitcases, coats, back packs, wheelchairs etc... There is something hanging off every arm, back and neck.

When you board, little old ladies or gentlemen, kids, and moms and dads block the aisle. They start separating their carry on stuff in to what goes under the seat, what goes overhead and what stays on the seat. They DO NOT move until the stewardess tells them to let people by. If you are one of the later people to board, good luck finding any overhead room. Once we are settled and in the air and the seat belt sign is off, an amazing thing occurs. Everyone rises, and the families go into action. The stewerdess bells are continuously pushed and many many many requests for more pillows, more blankets, more drinks, more heating of baby bottles etc. are made. And whole floors in front of the seats are made into beds, let down tables are set up with magnificant buffets of food and drink, beds are made out of the seats and generally little homes away from home are created. Some of the babies, especially the little boys, cry....a lot but eventually settle. Little children stand on the seats and most inappropriately stare at you over the back of the seats and block your view of the tiny inadequate tv screen hanging out of the ceiling. They pick their noses, digging deep. I will say this, if the mom sees them she will stop them...if its a girl. Eventually everyone settles and goes to sleeep......all of them!

3. Asian (or actually I mean Chinese) Airlines: Okay, where to start. Firstly, the seats are so damned small its laughable. Even normal size white people have to get seat belt extentions. If the person in front of you puts their seat back, you cannot move, literally. You can rest your chin on the back of their seat without moving forward. When you put the table down it cuts into your stomach and stays at a tipped forward slant.

When you fly with the Chinese, two things become very clear very quickly. One, they are the friendliest of all the people we have travelled with, and they are the most competitive. They want to be first, no matter what it is. And they have a way of sliding in there and becoming first even when you are trying your damndest to keep them in line. So to get from the gate to the plane, to get to your seat, to get some overhead space, to use the bathroom...all of it is a competitive struggle to the death. If you are used to being polite, this will be hard on you. You will have to shove little old ladies over, stomp little kids, elbow and shove men or you just won't fly or get to use the loo.

All that being said, the worst of all is how they have no filters when it comes to body functions. OH MY GOD!!! They burp...loud and long and stinky. They fart...loud and long and even stinkier. And.....they hawk, and gargle and clear their throats and they spit. Into napkins, into garbages, on the ground...over and over. They snort snot back up into their heads, really really loud, then gurgle it up out of their nethers in to their mouths, really really loud, then lean over and let it stream out. They pick their noses, blatently, all the while staring at you. Then they roll it and roll it and roll it in their fingers then when its dry enough they flick it. When they eat they never ever shut their mouths. Smack smack smack smack slurp slurp slurp smack smack smack. And their babies scream, high pitched ear piercing screaming crying....and those little suckers can scream for ten solid hours with the mother banging metal cups, spoons, chopsticks whatever trying to distract them. The men just sleep and hawk and spit and clear their throats and pick their noses and flick flick flick and the babies scream and scream and scream and granny spits and hawks and the babies scream some more until I want to strangle it!!!!!!!!!!!! One time there were five babies in our two rows all of them screaming at once. There are no individual tvs, just one big one at the front and all in chinese...no english. Ten hours of this. We call it Helllines! Oh and we don't eat, by the time the food comes we are heaving and so grossed out we can't eat. But...they are the nicest friendliest fellow travellers.

Back Alley Full of Hungry People

I had the oddest dream last night. I almost never retell dreams, I find them boring. They aren't real so why bother. But this one was crazy.

I was with Aryn and her friend Heather in a dusty dirty real basement...cement floors, rough wooden work benches, wooden shelves. This was Heather's temporary appartment for some reason. It was dark out and she came bursting through the basement door from the back alley. Aryn and I were standing there and she says "There are 80 Afghanee refugees in the alley and they are starving hungry. We need to feed them!!!!!" So I peeked out the dirty window and sure enough there was a family squatting against the opposite wall, complete with naked baby in filthy cloth. They were silent and very very dirty.

So......I said "Let's make dahl". We grabbed two giant pots and slapped them onto a stove that magically appeared. On Heather's shelf were all the ingredients we needed. First in went a huge block of butter and a mass of diced oniions and garlic (thank you Aryn). Next we added spices and tumeric then massive big cans of canned tomatoes (why Heather would have all this I am not sure, but whatever we needed, she had it!). Next we added lentils and small legumes. When it was all done, remarkably quickly (thankyou dream) I added the masala. Heather found styrofoam cups and so out into the alley we went with our delicious dahl.

Silently and smoothly, dark shapes started to slide into view. Aryn ladled dahl into the cups and we started to feed them. When all was done we felt good, they felt good and I woke up.