Monday, November 14, 2016

I hate Qantas!

When little Joel first took to the air, he was a little fella who probably knew one train from another, but did not know much about airplanes. So, when he first arrived in Frankfurt, he thought that all those fancy Starlifters and Galaxys on the far side of the runway were from the Swiss Air Force. After all, the term "air force" was mentioned and to his knowledge, there was only one air force in the world.

That Frankfurt place felt like one big jungle and to be honest, things have not changed a great deal since. That airport has just grown bigger, but mind you, there are some other places in the world where an airport is a lot more associated with a nightmare. At least everything was still pointed out in German (so little Joel could read it) and the shopping was awesome. Oh well, yea, the things little Joel could look at, such as model trains and maybe something else, which pretty sure was nowhere near as fancy.

Bedtime approached, but there was no bed to be seen anywhere. Instead it was time to head towards the gate lounge to wait for one massive steel bird to arrive from Paris. Those were the days when one long-haul aircraft would still cover several destinations far away from home. Or en-route, as little Joel was about to find out. Whether little Joel knew about the Jumbo at the time is unknown, but one thing is sure, he does now.

About 24 hours later, little Joel arrived in Sydney, having found a way through a package of pretzels, through some airline catering and surely one or the other can of coke. To be an addict of said deliciously refreshing black poison does not come by chance, one has to start early! Things went as bad an overly-caring flight attendant asking whether it wasn't too early for little Joel to have one of those mean cans at 8am a few weeks later. Little Joel still has not forgiven her.

To imagine that the big cabin screens on aircraft are slowly becoming a dying breed in the wake of the introduction of on-demand entertainment on a personal screen was absolutely unthinkable in those days. To little Joel and many other six-year-olds in this world, being able to watch movies (albeit in that strange language they call English) hour after hour was just great. Particularly if those movies involved intellectual icons such as one Mr. Bean.

I bet, little Joel would never ever have said this:



;)

No comments: