Made it to the Mile High Club!

This morning I left home at the usual time - 7.25 - for Chicago. The trip took me to the Marco Polo Airport, then a flight to Munich, and now I am sitting in the just remodeled business class of a Lufthansa A340 en route to Chicago!

It is the first time that I use the internet on a flight, and it's pretty exciting. Sure, it costs money, as most pleasurable things on earth. To be precise, 30$ for the entire 9 hour flight. I am usually cheap with these kinds of things, but I figured I had to try it... So here I am, blogging from an unspecified place 7 miles above the Atlantic, off the coast of Scotland. I never had sex miles high, but I guess that should not be too different from having sex at sea level, apart from the obvious shortcomings of two bodies moving together inside a toilet cabin. As for surfing the internet, being on a plane definitely adds something to it! I just sent a few emails, and a couple SMS (text messages on cell phones). I love it! After this blog, I will be spending my time playing chess on the internet chess club, or bridge on www.pogo.com, or the like. Life is GOOD!

And I must say a word or three about these new business class seats they got on the intercontinental flights. Gordon, you definitely have to give Lufthansa another try, upon my word! The seats are a concentrated of technology. Not only will they take on any conceivable position you want them to (with a remote operating them!), from seat to bed (total flatness is achievable), and not only will they prevent you from bothering the person seating behind you (every seat has a shell of its own to prevent that), but they will give a massage to your back if you want to! Unbelievable. When the flight attendant at the boarding gate slid my boarding pass through the machine and the latter started to beep, I knew instantly I had hit on a free upgrade this morning. And there I am, being treated to a red Ribera wine, two kinds of smoked salmon, and the first course is coming pronto.

I am going to be at Fermilab for just two days this time. Short commute. A meeting or two, and then back. I can do that only because I am doing more of these in a row, otherwise flying without a weekend away would be too expensive. I have criss-crossed tickets for the next three trips, and so I can spend weekends with my family...

The down side of all this is the sleep deprivation that comes with frequent switches of the day time. We'll see how I score. Being away from Ilaria, however, is already beneficial...

Comments

[Gordon Watts]

Ha! Well, I've got a flight at the end of the month to CERN, and I'll be on Lufthansa -- I'm also hoping it has the internet. I seriously doubt that I'll get the upgrade (I don't fly them often enough). But I'll go where the cheap tickets are. Perhaps this time they will give me a decent seat rather than one in the back, bouncy tail.

Good luck with the sleep, and I hope the airline doesn't catch you out with the criss-crossed tickets!

[Gordon Watts]

Hey -- a few months ago I did a "day in pictures" as I moved from one end of the US to the other. I had fun doing it, but it was basically boring. I think you should do one of those. It would include a water taxi... so it would have to be great (http://qd.typepad.com/4/2005/02/day_in_pictures.html)

[Tommaso Dorigo]

Hi Gordon,

Take with you two batteries for the laptop (no laptop power in economy alas) and buy the 30$ flynet connection when on board. It's fun!

As for me, I got a free upgrade on my return flight as well! Definitely lucky these days.

I sort of followed your advice about posting a day's worth of pictures. See my blog...

Ah, and thanks for visiting my entries here!

Cheers,
T.

[Gordon Stangler]

I just wanted to chime in with a w00t for Luftansa. It is one of the best airlines I have ever had the pleasure of being a passenger on.

No airplane thread would be complete without an airplane joke:
The worst airline disaster in Poland's history occurred today when a two-seater Cessna crashed into a cemetery early this *afternoon. *
*
Rescue workers have so far uncovered 826 bodies and expect to find more as the digging continues.

-Enjoy-