Category Archives: Airlines
A First Class First Taste of Smoked Salmon
Smoked salmon seems to pop up everywhere these days, in all sorts of guises, but it wasn’t always the case. I had to reach the grand old age of twelve before relishing my first taste of this fine fish-lover’s fare. My mother and I had been upgraded to First Class (!!) on a transatlantic Pan Am flight, in the good ole days of winged Clippers. The front of the plane was a new experience for my young self and I knew it wasn’t to be taken for granted, so I sat up straight and was on my absolutely best behaviour when the purser approached our row, what little there was of it. Before us she placed plates of cold fish in concertinas of tangerine, stark against the white crockery. I looked at my mother for guidance and she gave me a quick explanation of what we were about to eat. “It’s smoked salmon,” she explained, “and these are the condiments that go with it,” I looked down at the array set on the tray between us. Never had I seen fish served like this before.
Little triangles of perfect Melba toast accompanied the spread, golden and warm from the galley. Just as I popped the first bite into my mouth, having had a quick lesson in what to do with the caviar and dollop of sour cream, the capers and tiny diced onions and morsels of hard-boiled egg, the purser returned. “Would the young lady care for vodka with that?” she asked my mother with a cheeky wink, “Vodka? ME?” I was confused by the offer, “but I’m only twelve years old!” I already knew that the American airlines were super-strict about the serving of alcohol to only those over twenty-one, not that I’d started hitting the hard stuff yet, so I thought we must have a real renegade in charge of our cabin. The purser continued to jest. “Twelve years old, huh? Funny. You look so grown up. I could swear you were at least twenty-one!” She knew just how to charm a shy adolescent.
We returned home to New Zealand a couple of weeks later, my palate craving a food that would remain, for some time at least, reserved for special occasions. Following that landmark flight I had a new answer for people who asked what my favourite foods were: “Smoked salmon and caviar,” I’d reply, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Su Nuraghe, Sardinia
Picture the scene: it’s late morning at Sardinia’s Cagliari Elmas airport. Monsieur and I have been awake since dawn but haven’t had time for breakfast. The low-cost airline has high-cost sandwiches which we avoid, mostly because they already look curled and cardboardy, and the coffee looks like something that might spurt out of a long-disused farmhouse tap. Monsieur and I are not the types to eat for the sake of it so we wave the snacks trolley past. Besides, we figure that abstinence now will soon enough be rewarded when we lunch on some fine Italian food.
As the aircraft doors opened to a rush of warm, Sardinian air, Monsieur and I were raring to go. That morning, we’d left the spring morning chill of Luton to fly into the deep blue hanging above this craggy isle. We decided to forget hotels for now; they’re for sleeping. Our feet had different priorities: they were itching to reach sand and saltwater.
First, we picked up the hire car, which wasn’t the convertible Monsieur had booked - the previous renter had decided to abscond with it for an extra day and there weren’t any others available. We might have been miffed, but for two things: 1. only the most unreasonable of folk wouldn’t get the temptation to Just Stay One More Day - Sardinian weather in May is glorious; and 2. the alternative on offer was a brand new Fiat 500. Personally, I preferred it to the convertible; it had iconic value and would protect me from being flattened by wind and bugs as Monsieur zoomed along the autostrade.
We sped away from the airport, past mud flats studded with the pale pink of flamingo, to the southern Sardinian coast. There, the road led us to a small town near the beach – formed of clusters of small, stuccoed buildings radiating out from a modern piazza. Everything testified to sensitive yet sensible town-planning, the shops and eateries all freshly painted in the sort of ice cream pastels that made me long for a gelato to drip down my hand. For that, however, I would have to wait a little longer.
On opening the doors of our little ‘bambino’, the heat rushed at us like a blast from the oven. It was more than just warm – you could easily have fried a couple of eggs in less than a minute on the scorching asphalt street. Feeling the sting of the sun on our winter-bleached skin, we sought out somewhere shady to lunch, settling on a buffet restaurant called Su Nuraghe. The restaurant is named after the strange megalithic buildings (nuraghe) that look like stone beehives, marking the Sardinian landscape and now quite the unofficial symbol of Sardinia itself. We found a table in the shade, then ventured inside to order. The interior was cool and practical -sparkling laminate floor, glass and chrome counters, simple tables and chairs. There were no grubby fingernails here.
We ordered lots of good, sparkling Sardinian water and plates of seafood salad to start.
Mussels and crabsticks made an appearance in this simple dish, but fortunately for this lover of octopodes, there was a surfeit of eight-legged sea creature before me. I do so relish the cool, fresh flesh of an octopus, served in the merest drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice.
Next came plates of one of Italy’s simplest seaside pasta dishes – spaghetti tossed with olive oil and fresh sea urchin. The precious orange roe had a delightfully slippery texture and tasted like Neptune’s version of marshmallow – capturing all at once the taste of sea air on the tongue and combining it with a unique, briney sweetness. This was exactly the sort of food Monsieur and I had anticipated. Our morning’s patience had certainly been rewarded.
Before heading off to the beach, we stopped at a gelateria for a refreshing treat. I was interested to note the existence of soya milk-based gelato on their menu, which is a boon for anyone with lactose intolerance! Tempted though I was to taste-test it, today I stuck to my favourite flavours: cocco, stracciatella e banana. I’ll never be size zero at this rate and, in this world of superficiality, I admit that such a thing doesn’t even approach making it onto my bucket list. Truth be told, I’m probably not the norm in this respect. I’d much rather meet my Maker with a stomachful of flavour and the memory of a good old slap-up lunch than arrive at the Pearly Gates regretting the fact that diet coke and a lettuce leaf (hold the dressing) had been my death row meal. As Fellini once put it: “Life is a combination of magic and pasta,” and if you could add the freshest seafood salad and quality gelato to that combination, you’d have a lunch that I’d be happy to enjoy as my last.
Virgin Atlantic’s new ad
Went to see Gordon Gecko’s latest incarnation in Wall Street 2 recently and just about spat out my water in giggles at this ad in the cinema. Don’t worry – Monsieur didn’t get too wet, he’d brought his brolly. In particular I really dig the pole dancers. It’s even funnier because it’s total fiction – Monsieur and I couldn’t begin to describe how frustrating our Virgin flight back from honeymoon was – crashed online check-in so Monsieur could get a seat but not me (computer said I didn’t exist)… had to forego bag drop because of that. Stood in line FOREVER thanks to understaffing only to be told that we couldn’t sit together (on our way back from honeymoon???) thanks to a cruise liner that had deposited its UK passengers on this flight, which was now overbooked. Try to swap your seats at the gate? Not blooming likely. The flight’s full to bursting with cruise ship lovers. That means that most of them are COUPLES. Even the nicest person in the world wouldn’t want to swap away from their partner so I could be with My New Hubby on a 10 hour flight. We tried regardless. All the couples around us said sorry but no. Big Fat FAIL.
Monsieur and I weren’t the only ones with seat allocation troubles. People behind me (Monsieur was on the other side of the plane in a completely different cabin) bickered all ten hours of the way home. They hadn’t been seated next to their bridge partners from the cruise, one woman had issue with the man in front of her reclining his seat, and because we were in the back of the plane and one of the meal options had run out by the time the dinner trolley reaches us, there was a near revolt. Little wonder why the crew were grumpy and not the perfectly coiffed divas and gods of this ad.
NB Don’t you think that if Virgin Atlantic crews really looked like they do in this ad, they wouldn’t be trolley dollies? Like, maybe Calvin Klein models or XXX movie stars? Hmm. Moi aussi.
Last point: having a vague idea of how much per-second TV or cinema ads cost to make and show, this one replete with special effects must have cost a blinding amount, possibly even the GDP of a tiny third world country. And whatever my recent issues with Virgin Atlantic, I’ve also enjoyed fantastic flights with them, love their in-flight ice-cream and red-hot (or should I say ‘hot red’?) sleeping socks and this ad certainly makes me giggle.
Where Epic finds she cannot bear her seatmate/s on Eva Air
When Monsieur booked our flights to Bangkok a couple of years ago, he chose Eva Air. “Eva who?” I asked, somewhat concerned that there existed an airline I hadn’t yet heard of. “They’re Taiwan’s national carrier,” he explained, as if it were common knowledge, which it probably was to everyone else in the world, but not me. Nonetheless it inspired a frisson of excitement that we’d soon be flying with an airline I’d had no clue existed until we booked this trip.
When the departure date finally arrived, we were understandably excited about spending the next couple of weeks in the Far East. Then, to make things even better, the Eva Air check-in clerk gave us an upgrade from sardine to premier sardine class. “You’ll be sitting by the bulkhead. Is that okay?” she asked, and I wondered why she asked us anything given that with the upgrade we’d be sitting in seats considered to be better and therefore more expensive than those we’d booked. “Of course it’s okay!” we replied with a grin. Little did we know.
On board, we were seated in the central two seats of a row of four, directly in front of a bulkhead. Indeed we had extra leg room, thanks to the upgrade. On a thirteen-hour flight, that counts for something. This trip was starting well.
To my left was a man with a baby. He was friendly and chatted with me about rugby until his wife, seated directly behind us, decided that we were chatting a bit TOO much and insisted on swapping with him. Directly after take-off, the problems started. A flight attendant appeared with a cot for the baby, which was strapped to the bulkhead, thereby blocking my access to the aisle and destroying any leg room gain that may have existed a mere moment before. Added to which, there was so much baby paraphernalia now encroaching on my space that getting into my armrest for in-flight entertainment controls was becoming an issue. I’d say ‘excuse me’ and she’d huff and puff with a grimace, as if I were inconveniencing HER! Meanwhile, baby wipes and muslins and teats and all sorts of baby items were making their way across to my seat and my foot space. I was not a happy bunny.
I do sympathise with parents who travel with babies. It can’t be easy, what with extra carry-on and push chairs and feedings and little ears popping on ascent and descent, not to mention crying. Some parents manage incredibly well although they tend to be the ones who stay quiet and calm with their babies. Their demeanour seems to rub off on their wee one. Unfortunately, the mother next to me was not one of those people. She was tense and moody and grumpy and a downright pain in the arse. For the first time in my life I regretted that we’d ever been offered an upgrade and wished myself back with the regular sardines.
Then, out of the blue, and somewhat temporarily, Grumpy Mum started treating me like a human being. I think it probably had something to do with the fact that the cabin was now echoing with the incessant howls of her offspring. He screamed so long and so loud that I was tempted to ask if he had been born with any numerical birthmarks, like 666. Bugger it, I hadn’t brought any ear plugs.
(the grumpiest baby to be found on Google images. Not sure to whom I should attribute this image, because loads of different sites have used it…)
Eventually, Grumpy Mum realised that a soiled nappy was the reason for the screaming. At the risk of stating the obvious, and I know I may not be a mother myself, but isn’t that one of the first things you check when a baby starts to cry? But wait, there’s more. Instead of taking the baby to the rest room to change him, she removed his stinky, pooey, messy nappy right there in the cabin and did so with such lack of care for her child that the screaming intensified. Three flight attendants tried to tell her to take the baby to the rest room, but Grumpy Mum wasn’t moving. No sir. She was changing the nappy right there and then. In hindsight and on behalf of my fellow passengers, I should have taken the nappy and rammed it up her nose. Inconsiderate doesn’t even begin to describe it. The cabin stank for hours. Literally. I remind you that this was a long-haul flight.
With the aroma of baby faeces wafting up my nose I wondered how airlines could decrease the likelihood of such scenarios happening. Perhaps they could issue guidelines for people travelling with small children (if they don’t already)? Perhaps they could create a cot that sits IN a seat so that aisle access is not blocked – something that could be dangerous in an emergency. Perhaps they could follow a protocol so that passengers are informed if they are going to be seated next to a baby and can change seat allocation if that’s going to be a problem for them. On a site called Flying With Kids experts suggest that some airline assistants will block out the seat next to the parent of a young child to allow them extra space – according to availability. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for us and as far as I was concerned the pilot couldn’t fly us to Bangkok fast enough. If my baby neighbour had been a new incarnation of the devil, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least. To be fair, though, I think his non-stop screaming were due to poor parenting. Had I had enough opportunity to relax and sleep on the flight, I may have found energy to feel sorry for the kid. But, no. I’m embarrassed to admit that infanticide was the only thing on my mind by the time the plane landed. I practically ran off the plane to escape the previous 13 hours of smelly, noisy confinement. So what can we do to help ourselves avoid the baby cot scenario in future? Here are some tips. Feel free to add to them in the comments below.
- Sometimes airlines upgrade you because it will help THEM out. It pays to be aware of this. In our case we must have looked polite enough to put up with a 13 hour flight next to a screaming baby. Never again.
- If you are travelling à deux, never, ever accept a pair of middle seats in the middle row. By taking an aisle and a middle seat together, you will only disrupt your companion if you need to get up.
- If you are offered bulkhead seats, ask if your neighbours will be requiring cots.
- Reserve your preferred seats online wherever possible to avoid losing out in the lottery of last-minute seat allocation.
- If the clerk at check-in asks you to change seats, ask to see a plan of the cabin so you know exactly where you will be.
- Note that when travelling on low-cost airlines, unless you pay extra for preferential boarding, you will sit wherever there is space. There are often no set seat allocations.
- Pack ear plugs in your carry-on. For those unexpectedly noisy moments, like the screaming child or the high-decibel snoring coming from 33D.
- Ditto rosemary essential oil. A dab of that under your nose will help mask any unpleasant cabin smells without adding to them.
- And for the instance where your seat-mate decides to use the reading light when you want to sleep, take an eye-mask. You can get them imbued with lavender nowadays – which will help you relax and further reduce any effects of strange smells in the cabin.
- Have I forgotten anything?
- Oh yeah. Beta Blockers. They work every time.
