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I am about to get up. But I don’t. I can’t, because she is working her way towards me. She is stunning for her mission alone. Yes, I am about to receive the first class “moist towelette.” Surely I can hold it long enough to receive the tong held outstretched boiled towel that is the privilege of the upper class. Having traveled I have always seen this sacred rite from a distance.
Others amazingly DECLINE their towelette! This never occurs to me. Who declines a moist steaming towelette? This to me is like leaving a country, as Seinfeld says, where everyone has a pony. Why would you? I start to think ill of the decliners but this train of thought doesn’t last long.
The ipod, having shuffled through Queen, Matisyahu, Smashing Pumpkins and Sinead O’Connor settles into Morrissey for the imminent arrival. This strikes me as wrong for the arrival of pretty much anything. Yet the ipod is locked and inaccessible. So there it is; Morrissey becomes the sound track.
And she arrives. It’s my turn after my seatmate reveals himself a decliner. The tong reaches out and two more thoughts occur in this order. 1) It is mine! And 2) HOT!
Temperature notwithstanding I proceed to wipe my hands with the artifact. By the time I get to my face it has cooled just enough to retain the outermost layer of skin presently missing from my hands.
I would look back on this event realizing no recollection of the flight attendant’s features. My theory is the initial pain fermented the towelette memory and at the same time wiped out the 10 seconds prior. But that is then and this is now.
Besides the towelette, obviously, I start to add up the other benefits of my bump to first class seat 5A. It does not include the windows. Nope, same size windows as the rest of the plane. You would kind think big screen windows that are cleaner. (hint hint Continental! – can you hook us up?)
What definitely is a step up is the big chair. Big and plump like Bill’s chair on the Cosby show. Perhaps most important I realize the armrest is wide enough for the elbows and then some! The prescient designers of this part of the plane, the front part, must have expected these people to both have arms!
The last thought upsets me a bit when I think of my next flight back in armless class.
The tray the breakfast croissant, ham and egg, arrives on is nicer. Slightly larger with little rubber feet so it doesn’t slide all around. Like the trays of the accursed behind the mesh divider that lifts us up.
The bathroom, which I would have to call “le toilette” if I was writing a rap song and needed to rhyme with towelette, is not better. Same size. Same features. Same stupid sink. And the same stupid towel dispenser relinquishing pieces of what is presumably a stack of well-formed towels preloaded at 500 psi.
The silverware is metal. Flatter than it should be and cuter than it should be. But metal. I briefly ponder the rules on 1st class souvenirs. Which takes me back to a story of a friend practically strip searched entering the United States in possession of a flat and cute Air France spoon. I decide not to ask the flight attendant despite her non-Frenchness.
Looking around I realize the decliner to my right has rebuffed everything including coffee. On an 8:30 AM flight. I don’t trust him. Even if he is apparently completing Sodoku in pen. On the plus side I do not have to touch him at all given the magnificent width of the armrest.
I take a picture of my breakfast tray. With the wide-angle lens on the camera, and given I am too lazy to attach the external flash it leaves a half moon shadow on the picture. Probably the one attached to this post. So of course I have to take several shots hoping to move the crescent far enough down to crop the tray in its entirety. With the cute cutlery. At this point my seatmate is eyeing the armrest. Apparently this is unexpected behavior in first class. Who knew?
From my perspective declining everything in first class is far weirder behavior than photographing your flat breakfast croissant. But that is just me.
Having traveled frequently in my life it seems improbably that this is my first moist towelette. Yet it is. At 39. And it was good.
Now to land and put some more distance between me and the decliner….
Star Alliance partners Air Canada and TAM 777s at Frankfurt Airport shot taken on pushback onboard Thai Airways Airbus A380
I'll have to check if this is the only one I have. I do have buffet cars and all Lima coaches are nice smooth runners. (I have two)
This First Class carriage can be hired as a private carriage from Train Chartering, with a steward and special catering as well as some branding. It has 46 seats. On certain services, we offer a full restaurant service, otherwise 'bistro'-style or tray meals are available. Trains with these carriages operate between London, the North of England and Scotland. Here is the route map covered by the trains with these carriages - www.flickr.com/photos/14589121@N00/3653156843
Anyone have a diffierent idea let me know, I have seen two of these birds in the last week, the only thing that throws me off is the all one color dark body which looks like a dark morph red-tailed hawk, but the tail and the underwing make me now think its a swainsons, thanks Greg
Note the bust of Kaiser Wilhelm II.All images from 'The Fabulous Interiors Of The Great Ocean Liners' by William H.Miller, Jr. Dover Books 1985
Some sort of fish starter with stuffed vine leaves, salad and fruit salad.
The mains were a variety of Iranian dishes; Chicken kebab, Koobideh, sabzi polo (rice with herbs and pulses), white fish and I forget the rest - I was full after the starter and didn't really eat mains.
Iran Air's first class wasn't too bad. My feet couldn't touch anything in front; I didn't test the recline of the seat though. Food was not bad and the service attentive - probably worth the the extra squeeze on dollars.