Departing Flight To London

Every good trip begins with a good experience at the airport and airplane. I was dropped off at O’Hare almost 4 hours early, to compensate for my lack of caucasionality and last name of “Smith”. But it turned out to be a piece of cake – got a regular boarding pass without needing to go through the usual special security, and got through to my gate in less than a half hour. It was a bummer because then I had a lot of time to kill, and the iPod wasn’t getting WiFi.

Jesse came soon enough, then we took off exploring the airport terminal. Nothing really exciting happened, except we noticed that there were no Cinnabon’s around which was very weird. If there is one thing you can usually count on at an airport, it’s the cinnamon-y aroma pumped in the air by fresh-baked rolls. We got McDonalds, then boarded the plane. The plane wound up taking off 45 minutes late, but it was comfortable enough, and there were plenty of new things to discover on international flights as opposed to domestic.

Besides obviously being a much bigger plane, our Boeing 777 had touch-television screens in the back headrest of every seat with a remote that controlled movies, TV shows, games, music and up-to-date flight stats like altitude and speed. I played Tetris, Battleship, and a Pac-Man ripoff. I watched 4 episodes of The Office, and the movie Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. Each seat had a nice little prize basket of a tiny hypo-allergenic pillow, hard plastic earbuds, and a Snuggie-quality blanket. I slept for about a half hour while listening to Bob Dylan and The Decemberists, and then gave up sleeping on the plane.

I don’t think I ever had a complete meal on an airplane – and I have to say I was impressed with just how complete it was. The options were beef and mashed potatoes, or rice and chicken. I got the chicken, which had some kind of mushroom sauce and vegetables mixed with the rice and everything. It was hot, but it all tasted the same when mixed together. There was also a small salad with dressing and it had a surprisingly ripe and delicious tomato in it. There was a cold, not-too-tough roll with butter and a wedge of soft swiss cheese and crackers. The desert was actually a very good piece of dense, vanilla/white chocolate cake. Breakfast was a disappointment, a croissant, a packet of jam and butter (did they expect me to put them both on the croissant?) strawberry yogurt and a cup of sour orange juice. I asked for tea with milk and sugar. The yogurt was the only good part. The airplane was enjoyable, though I can’t say I look forward to the trip back home, since that signifies the end of London.