Jan 11 2007
Hot Towels and Bathrooms
I finally board the plane. My first leg in my 34-hour journey to Cape Town. I’m on a Boeing 777, the seats in 3-3-3 configuration. Three columns with 3 seats to a row. The seats were upholstered in purple and royal blue and a fake pine bough with ornaments were hung at intervals. American Christmas music was playing. I’m seated in the back…way back. I was able to get an aisle seat, my first choice since I try to drink a lot of water and this means, well, I have to get rid of it. Repeatedly.
I end up sitting next to a couple from Atlanta. I’ve been traveling back and forth to Atlanta for the past year and my row-mates end up being from there. Go figure. They were on their way to Vietnam and were on the 2nd leg of their 30+ hour journey. They were also using United miles and had a similarly convoluted series of flights. Their plan was to sleep as much as they could the entire way. They did pretty well. They only got up once the during the flight.
Before they dozed off, I learned that John, the man in the middle seat, was in construction. His current assignment was renovating the Atlanta Airport. I told him, “Nice tilework.” His wife, Carrie, encouraged him to speak about his work and he mentioned how difficult it was to schedule the construction, work around the crowds. I told him I really liked the new marble flooring and that the bathrooms were fantastic.
Warning: Bathrooms will be featured heavily in my Cape Town Vacation series.
I appreciate a well-designed bathroom. I’m no expert, but I do know what I don’t like.
I mentioned the black granite counters and nice stonework in the bathrooms and Carrie, John’s wife, said, “See…people DO notice!”
Well, Ms. Q certainly notices. I think that people have a secret fascination with bathrooms. I mean, we all Gotta Go, right? And it’s well, kinda interesting to see how people in other parts of the world handle all this…going.
Anyway, we’re in the air and the Singapore Girls are sashaying down the aisles. I’m not saying this to denigrate them. Their uniforms, a beautiful and form-fitting sarong kebaya pretty much forces them to sashay a bit. They were all Asian and they had a very definite Look. Their hair was generally worn up and sleek, they were flawlessly made up with blue eye-shadow and dark lips. I noticed the blue eye-shadow as Asians don’t typically use this color. They were all slender. They were assisted by, I guess you’d call them the Singapore Guys. They were also all Asian and they wore a blue sport coat. Everyone seemed to be under 30 years old. As the crew was entirely Asian, they were probably all in their 40s.
The Girls sashay by and bring us Hot Towels. Purfumed Hot Towels. We were brought these hot towels before meals. At one point, perhaps 9 hours into our flight, Carrie woke up for one of the many meals and said, “Wow. I am really looking forward to one of those hot towels.” When you can’t really move and you feel like a seat grub, that hot towel is as close to a shower as you’re gonna get.
The food was decent but the rolls horrible. Like puffed cardboard. I am guessing this is in keeping with the Asian theme. Asians are good with rice and noodles, not so good with bread.
I managed to avoid eating the desserts – I didn’t want to get a head start on my anticipated Vacation Weight Gain. It wasn’t that difficult to avoid the first dessert – a miniature tub of Haagen Dazs Ice Cream. I’m not much into ice cream and knew from past experience that airplane ice cream is Rock Hard. I saw several people hammering away at their dessert. Good thing we were given real silverware.
I watched 3 movies – we all had individual screens. Singapore Airlines had a really nice selection of online entertainment. I tried to stay in synch with Cape Town time so my plan was to stay awake the first leg and then sleep on the final leg. I believe in synchronicity and I wasn’t surprised to learn that Last Holiday was one of the movies available. The movie stars Queen Latifa as a woman who learns that she has 3 weeks to live. All her life she has been working on this scrapbook, her Book Of Possibilities. She pastes in all her dreams but she never does anything about making those dreams come true. I liked the idea of a Book Of Possibilities.
As I flew my roundabout way to Cape Town, I thought about what I was making possible.