I sit in a giant metal tube, high above the ocean, traveling obscenely fast, and time drags on. All I hear is the murmuring of voices that sound like mere whispers under the white noise of the ever gusting air vents and the engines propelling us forward, disrupted only by the clattering of wine and spirit bottles as the flight attendants push drink carts by on occasion. I have been on the plane for about 6 hours now.
We lifted off a tad late into the fog of a autumn night in Chicago, with little visibility my attention was quickly drawn to the various magazines sitting in the pocket in front of me. First goal: look for any information on the food provided and the etiquette as far as procuring beer goes. 200-something pages and a lot of arabic text later, nothing, not even a recognizable drink logo was found amongst the seemingly nonsensical script. They make an announcement over the intercom, which again is not loud enough to understand over the white noise, all I can hope for is that soon enough one of the lovely flight attendants will gentle touch my shoulder and ask if I'd care for something to drink.
It is not long before I begin to smell a new scent in the air......definitely food. Seated not so far from one of the several flight attendant stations, I can hear they are busy. The opening and closing of doors and drawers, the ruffling of foil against aluminum pans, the placing of plastic dishes on plastic trays. Being conveniently located close to where the food it prepped, I am among the first group to receive their meal, and yes, oh god yes, free beer.
In retrospect, I really don't understand my own excitement about the free alcoholic beverages. It's not like I'm trying to get drunk, take a nap, and awake to even the slightest of headaches with still another 6-something hours to go on the plane, not to mention the fact that i'd almost immediately have to jump on another plane......no, traveling drunk, albeit enticing, with the knowledge that i'll be spending a collective of at least 16 hours in the air no longer seem like a "fun" idea. Frankly, as I write about it, it seems more like hell than anything else. Re-reading this paragraph, I feel old.....and I love it.
Back to the surprisingly edible airline meal....
this evenings menu featured a "starter of cool couscous salad with carrot, garbonzo bean, mint, and apricot. An entree of chicken and prawn jumbalya accompanied by a dinner roll with cheese. Lastly, a cream puff with chocolate sauce." Think high-end cafeteria food. The couscous salad had some nice flavors, but was also terribly dry. The jumbalya was a tad bland and the veggies were VERY reminiscent your typical bag of the frozen mixed veggies (pieces of green bean, carrot, peas, and lima beans)....Not accusing anyone of anything here, but just saying. I did greatly appreciated the fact that you could tell someone actually tore real, whole chickens apart to make it, rather than using those suspiciously cubed pieces of chicken you typically find in canned soup or the clearly molded nuggets of "chicken" we find in american homes, schools, and grocery stores alike. The roll......the roll. It was warm, tasted fresh, and had a nice buttery flavor to it (yes, I am an ardent believer that butter is love), paired with the, wait for it.....ORGANIC cheese, might have been my favorite part of the meal. And of course, the cream puff, was a typical, probably frozen cream puff with what was probably just Hershey's chocolate syrup, was just fine. All an all, albeit my criticism, the meal was actually pretty good, and leaps and bounds better than the last airline meal, which was a very questionable deli sandwich, back when domestic flights in the states served food.
One last thing about meal time. Once they began serving the food, they disabled all the media options e.g. movies, tv shows, live flight information. Originally, I thought it was more culturally motivated, as I am flying a middle-east based carrier. I thought they were encouraging everyone to be mindful of their meal while eating, which I took to heart, regardless of what may or may not have been intended. Looking back, I think they disabled the media so that the patrons weren't distracted while the attendants handed them their meals as well as to make for a smooth and quick service, seeing as they turned the media back on once they finished passing the meals out and before they collected the trays. I guess they're not as cool and insightful as I originally hoped and made them out to be.
Time to nap.
