part 1: time to spare?? go by air!!
standing in my runners at madrid's barajas airport, i look out through the terminal window at the flagship iberia A-340-300 pulling into my future gate. her name is painted in black script below the captain's window: maria guerrero.
i feel a stirring in the vicinity of my gonads. must be the pancreas acting up again, that ol' instinctual hesitancy, not quite at peace with the idea of having to board an airbus. i think of the salty hangar dawgs' mantra: if it ain't a boeing, i ain't going. the only thing this plane has going for it are the four big CFM56 engines underslung her wings. at least there won't be a power issue when the computers up front take a dump. these suckers will keep purring for at least a thousand years, which should be sufficient to make the meek little hop across the atlantic.
i look at the seat assignment on my boarding pass. 6L. 6?!?! did the agent make a mistake? that is definitely close enough to the pointy end to be first class. and if not first class then definitely business. fuck. yeah. this trip is starting in spectacular fashion!
i walk down the jetway when my zone is called, unlike all the other zone 5 gate lice that have accumulated by the doorway for boarding of zone 1. look, i know it's hard, this whole number thing. i wish i could think of a good way to explain to all these obese mouth-breathers holding bags full of duty-free cigarettes that indeed we are all going to leave at the same time, and even probably arrive in quito at the same time too. something of einstein's theory of relativity comes to mind, but i decide that australopithecus-iberienses wouldn't be interested in my philosophical musings about space-time. they hear a mumbling over the p.a. in the vicinity of their gate, and no matter what language it's in or what is being said, their pavlovian reaction is as if they've been personally summoned.
stepping onto the aircraft, the gate-keeping flight attendants inform me that 6L is in fact a window seat on the right side of the aircraft. i guess A is on the left, and the seats are lettered alphabetically from left to right. this is something of an epiphany for a red-blooded white-scarfed blue-balled aviator like myself, but i immediately see the logic in it. i want to inquire if 6 will be after 5, and before 7, but instead i shut my whore mouth and plant my butt in place.
to my extreme disappointment, this aircraft is configured with 4 rows of first class and no business class at all. it's back-of-the-bus coach with the rest of the sodomites for me. and as a special bonus, guess who is in 5L? (that's the seat in front of me, for all you spatially-challenged readers) yep, mom and newborn baby. always has to be at least one within a seat or two. just wouldn't be right otherwise. the little miracle is crying already: the forecast is for 12 solid hours of awesome. all i can hope for is that the pilots crank up the cabin, maybe throw on the heaters, knock that little bundle out cold.
people are fairly stupid by nature, i grant you that, but put a cellphone or a car or a boarding pass in their hands and whatever functioning neurons they had before are instantly annihilated and all you see is the true mammalian instinct that has somehow gotten us this far as a species. suddenly it's not so difficult to comprehend why we were living in caves and eating roots and worshipping lightning not too long ago. i sit back, letting the rest of the pax file on and watching people with aisle seats getting smacked in the face by the ludicrously large carry-ons of the oblivious orangutans shuffling past. never board first if you have an aisle seat. i smile smugly from my sheltered window at this rookie mistake.
someone pushes the flight attendant call button. the tone sounds. they push it again. the tone, as if by some shamanic magic, sounds again. at the time, my youthful idealist self doesn't realize that this is a pattern that will repeat itself roughly every 6 seconds for the duration of the flight. not sure if it's some kid fucking around or if it's just another airbus engineering anomaly.
we push at the exact second a twin A-340-300 pulls into the chocks at the next gate. a wave of fraternity washes through my intestinal tract as i witness the docking/undocking out my porthole. pilots are always coming and going, running into each other for the briefest of moments in some far-away random terminal, sharing a few short minutes of conversation about where they are coming from; about where they are going next. delivering advice about how to circumnavigate that line of storms that are moving in over part of a route. inquiring about recent checkrides or medical evaluations. bitching about management's latest stillborn brainchild.
airborne over spain, my other home. released by madrid departure, quickly climbing the sky and turning seaward. the dark-eyed beauty who is apparently my personal stewardess asks in english what i would like to drink. i reply in flawless castellano that i require a bottle of vino tinto. she smiles, impressed with my southern-spain accent. a tiny fire dances in her eyes and a red tinge blushes across her cheeks in an unsuccessful concealment of her arousal.
the tinto comes. and just in time: my 32dB reduction earplugs are woefully inadequate at canceling out the 3500Hz blood-curdling screams emanating from directly in front of me. the tinto hits my lips, cool and tart and liquidly magical, immediately improving my mood and transporting me back to another era. memories come flooding back with each sip, glorious memories of raven-haired sweet spanish señoritas dancing flamenco with their swirling twirling dresses in the breeze; of andalusian eventide over the alhambra and the sierra nevada's summit snows slowly melting into the soft hues of watermelon, painted by the enduring shafts of late-afternoon light. i now see myself for what i truly was at the time: a clueless 23 year-old living the dream in granada.
we go feet wet. nothing but the atlantic's salt seas below. talk about commitment. i think back to when lindy crossed it in that flying gas can, the spirit of st. louis, with nothing but some sandwiches and a compass and sextant. the words of a few old girlfriends on the subject of commitment (and my apparent deficit of it) come to mind, and i process them through some neurons (while selectively killing others with the wine) here in my philosopher's chair at 39,000 feet.
raise a toast to my fellow aviator, one who undoubtedly also had to untangle himself from some young girls' strong embrace before stepping into the cockpit to vanquish the north atlantic. i often wish i would have been born in his golden era of aviation. those were the real stick wigglers. these iberia pilots now are just watching computers and drinking coffee and looking at porn magazines, pushing buttons and asking their autopilot's permission to turn the plane. what utter bullshit. what would lindy think of these modern busses of the air? and what advice would he give me about commitment?
the liver is marinating nicely now. the screaming starts again. 8th time in less than 2 hours. i eye my ipod. the battery will be good for 3, maybe 4 hours tops. i'm fucked. why do people subject babies to 12 hour flights? why do they subject themselves? and the rest of us? i look around my seat for solutions, something for the kid to play with... wine? a dinner fork? skymall magazine? i settle in for the suck.
somehow manage to pass out for most of the flight, watching movies inbetween. pop open the ol' window shade from time to time, despite the neighbors' and flight attendants' objections. what the hell is the point of having a window seat if you don't look out the window? geez, i do this for a living and i'm still smitten by the view. the magic and pure wonder of flight is just a glance over your shoulder but you get upset that i'm introducing light onto some rehashed formulaic hollywood skin flick? but that's * fucking * barbados below us! you know, pirates and shit! there really is no hope for humanity.
i sigh and think back to the past month off in france: skiing my brains out in knee-deep powder in courchevel. gorging myself on fondue and raclette and bold brown belgian beers. visiting a few people who are near and dear to my heart. and just this morning: lifting off in the silent early morning fog from lyon's airport (which is named for my literary and professional hero st. exupéry). leaving it all behind again, running away from life, off in pursuit of some volcanic summits.
30 minutes before landing, the captain informs us that we will not be landing in quito after all, but continuing on to guayaquil. the plane erupts in riots. accusations fly, the standard weeping and gnashing of teeth. my spanish gets a quick refresher on all the gutter profanity i had forgotten. something about an iberia strike starting at midnight. little do i know at the time that this little maneuver is going to get me into quito 10 hours late.
we land in the pouring rain in guayaquil and the whole airplane is up and unloading overhead compartments while we are still on the fucking taxiway. not even close to the gate. i know, i know, it's another difficult symbol to understand: the seatbelt sign. let me just interject, as a capitaine of one of these things myself, its raison d'être: when it's on, it's on for a reason. sitting the fuck down and fastening it low and tight wouldn't be the worst idea of your life.
i let the cattle fight it out. people go lurching down the aisle into each other when the marshaller gives the pilots a quick stop and he hits the brakes at the gate. big phucking surprise: that's just physics. no i don't feel sorry for you.
deplane and get into the terminal where my lizard brain slowly begins to comprehend my fate. iberia girls begin passing out snack coupons to quell the masses. i stand in line for mine. go to said snack bar. stand in line again. have a few of the mouth-breathers from the flight cut right in front of me. finally get to the register and ask, in spanish, if i can have one of his fine german beers with the coupon.
"sure," the dude says.
i hand him the voucher and crack it, swift and clean and true: chhhtttt. lifting the dark delicious fat brown bottle towards my eager gullet. the plump female manager squeals in nasally protest from behind her mighty countertop domain, breaking my concentration and freezing me like a deer in the headlights.
"you can't have alcoholic beverages with the coupon. you have to pay for it. $7."
i don't even take a sip. i set the already-opened beer down at the register and say i don't want it and walk away, biting my lip and somehow not unloading the past 18 hours' worth of frustrations on this extremely worthy target. talk myself down off the wall: she's just another drone representative of the masses.
but seriously: fuck gatekeepers everywhere.
at least i'm finally in country. i should get some sleep.
for cotopaxi awaits.
standing in my runners at madrid's barajas airport, i look out through the terminal window at the flagship iberia A-340-300 pulling into my future gate. her name is painted in black script below the captain's window: maria guerrero.
i feel a stirring in the vicinity of my gonads. must be the pancreas acting up again, that ol' instinctual hesitancy, not quite at peace with the idea of having to board an airbus. i think of the salty hangar dawgs' mantra: if it ain't a boeing, i ain't going. the only thing this plane has going for it are the four big CFM56 engines underslung her wings. at least there won't be a power issue when the computers up front take a dump. these suckers will keep purring for at least a thousand years, which should be sufficient to make the meek little hop across the atlantic.
i look at the seat assignment on my boarding pass. 6L. 6?!?! did the agent make a mistake? that is definitely close enough to the pointy end to be first class. and if not first class then definitely business. fuck. yeah. this trip is starting in spectacular fashion!
i walk down the jetway when my zone is called, unlike all the other zone 5 gate lice that have accumulated by the doorway for boarding of zone 1. look, i know it's hard, this whole number thing. i wish i could think of a good way to explain to all these obese mouth-breathers holding bags full of duty-free cigarettes that indeed we are all going to leave at the same time, and even probably arrive in quito at the same time too. something of einstein's theory of relativity comes to mind, but i decide that australopithecus-iberienses wouldn't be interested in my philosophical musings about space-time. they hear a mumbling over the p.a. in the vicinity of their gate, and no matter what language it's in or what is being said, their pavlovian reaction is as if they've been personally summoned.
stepping onto the aircraft, the gate-keeping flight attendants inform me that 6L is in fact a window seat on the right side of the aircraft. i guess A is on the left, and the seats are lettered alphabetically from left to right. this is something of an epiphany for a red-blooded white-scarfed blue-balled aviator like myself, but i immediately see the logic in it. i want to inquire if 6 will be after 5, and before 7, but instead i shut my whore mouth and plant my butt in place.
to my extreme disappointment, this aircraft is configured with 4 rows of first class and no business class at all. it's back-of-the-bus coach with the rest of the sodomites for me. and as a special bonus, guess who is in 5L? (that's the seat in front of me, for all you spatially-challenged readers) yep, mom and newborn baby. always has to be at least one within a seat or two. just wouldn't be right otherwise. the little miracle is crying already: the forecast is for 12 solid hours of awesome. all i can hope for is that the pilots crank up the cabin, maybe throw on the heaters, knock that little bundle out cold.
people are fairly stupid by nature, i grant you that, but put a cellphone or a car or a boarding pass in their hands and whatever functioning neurons they had before are instantly annihilated and all you see is the true mammalian instinct that has somehow gotten us this far as a species. suddenly it's not so difficult to comprehend why we were living in caves and eating roots and worshipping lightning not too long ago. i sit back, letting the rest of the pax file on and watching people with aisle seats getting smacked in the face by the ludicrously large carry-ons of the oblivious orangutans shuffling past. never board first if you have an aisle seat. i smile smugly from my sheltered window at this rookie mistake.
someone pushes the flight attendant call button. the tone sounds. they push it again. the tone, as if by some shamanic magic, sounds again. at the time, my youthful idealist self doesn't realize that this is a pattern that will repeat itself roughly every 6 seconds for the duration of the flight. not sure if it's some kid fucking around or if it's just another airbus engineering anomaly.
we push at the exact second a twin A-340-300 pulls into the chocks at the next gate. a wave of fraternity washes through my intestinal tract as i witness the docking/undocking out my porthole. pilots are always coming and going, running into each other for the briefest of moments in some far-away random terminal, sharing a few short minutes of conversation about where they are coming from; about where they are going next. delivering advice about how to circumnavigate that line of storms that are moving in over part of a route. inquiring about recent checkrides or medical evaluations. bitching about management's latest stillborn brainchild.
airborne over spain, my other home. released by madrid departure, quickly climbing the sky and turning seaward. the dark-eyed beauty who is apparently my personal stewardess asks in english what i would like to drink. i reply in flawless castellano that i require a bottle of vino tinto. she smiles, impressed with my southern-spain accent. a tiny fire dances in her eyes and a red tinge blushes across her cheeks in an unsuccessful concealment of her arousal.
the tinto comes. and just in time: my 32dB reduction earplugs are woefully inadequate at canceling out the 3500Hz blood-curdling screams emanating from directly in front of me. the tinto hits my lips, cool and tart and liquidly magical, immediately improving my mood and transporting me back to another era. memories come flooding back with each sip, glorious memories of raven-haired sweet spanish señoritas dancing flamenco with their swirling twirling dresses in the breeze; of andalusian eventide over the alhambra and the sierra nevada's summit snows slowly melting into the soft hues of watermelon, painted by the enduring shafts of late-afternoon light. i now see myself for what i truly was at the time: a clueless 23 year-old living the dream in granada.
we go feet wet. nothing but the atlantic's salt seas below. talk about commitment. i think back to when lindy crossed it in that flying gas can, the spirit of st. louis, with nothing but some sandwiches and a compass and sextant. the words of a few old girlfriends on the subject of commitment (and my apparent deficit of it) come to mind, and i process them through some neurons (while selectively killing others with the wine) here in my philosopher's chair at 39,000 feet.
raise a toast to my fellow aviator, one who undoubtedly also had to untangle himself from some young girls' strong embrace before stepping into the cockpit to vanquish the north atlantic. i often wish i would have been born in his golden era of aviation. those were the real stick wigglers. these iberia pilots now are just watching computers and drinking coffee and looking at porn magazines, pushing buttons and asking their autopilot's permission to turn the plane. what utter bullshit. what would lindy think of these modern busses of the air? and what advice would he give me about commitment?
the liver is marinating nicely now. the screaming starts again. 8th time in less than 2 hours. i eye my ipod. the battery will be good for 3, maybe 4 hours tops. i'm fucked. why do people subject babies to 12 hour flights? why do they subject themselves? and the rest of us? i look around my seat for solutions, something for the kid to play with... wine? a dinner fork? skymall magazine? i settle in for the suck.
somehow manage to pass out for most of the flight, watching movies inbetween. pop open the ol' window shade from time to time, despite the neighbors' and flight attendants' objections. what the hell is the point of having a window seat if you don't look out the window? geez, i do this for a living and i'm still smitten by the view. the magic and pure wonder of flight is just a glance over your shoulder but you get upset that i'm introducing light onto some rehashed formulaic hollywood skin flick? but that's * fucking * barbados below us! you know, pirates and shit! there really is no hope for humanity.
i sigh and think back to the past month off in france: skiing my brains out in knee-deep powder in courchevel. gorging myself on fondue and raclette and bold brown belgian beers. visiting a few people who are near and dear to my heart. and just this morning: lifting off in the silent early morning fog from lyon's airport (which is named for my literary and professional hero st. exupéry). leaving it all behind again, running away from life, off in pursuit of some volcanic summits.
30 minutes before landing, the captain informs us that we will not be landing in quito after all, but continuing on to guayaquil. the plane erupts in riots. accusations fly, the standard weeping and gnashing of teeth. my spanish gets a quick refresher on all the gutter profanity i had forgotten. something about an iberia strike starting at midnight. little do i know at the time that this little maneuver is going to get me into quito 10 hours late.
we land in the pouring rain in guayaquil and the whole airplane is up and unloading overhead compartments while we are still on the fucking taxiway. not even close to the gate. i know, i know, it's another difficult symbol to understand: the seatbelt sign. let me just interject, as a capitaine of one of these things myself, its raison d'être: when it's on, it's on for a reason. sitting the fuck down and fastening it low and tight wouldn't be the worst idea of your life.
i let the cattle fight it out. people go lurching down the aisle into each other when the marshaller gives the pilots a quick stop and he hits the brakes at the gate. big phucking surprise: that's just physics. no i don't feel sorry for you.
deplane and get into the terminal where my lizard brain slowly begins to comprehend my fate. iberia girls begin passing out snack coupons to quell the masses. i stand in line for mine. go to said snack bar. stand in line again. have a few of the mouth-breathers from the flight cut right in front of me. finally get to the register and ask, in spanish, if i can have one of his fine german beers with the coupon.
"sure," the dude says.
i hand him the voucher and crack it, swift and clean and true: chhhtttt. lifting the dark delicious fat brown bottle towards my eager gullet. the plump female manager squeals in nasally protest from behind her mighty countertop domain, breaking my concentration and freezing me like a deer in the headlights.
"you can't have alcoholic beverages with the coupon. you have to pay for it. $7."
i don't even take a sip. i set the already-opened beer down at the register and say i don't want it and walk away, biting my lip and somehow not unloading the past 18 hours' worth of frustrations on this extremely worthy target. talk myself down off the wall: she's just another drone representative of the masses.
but seriously: fuck gatekeepers everywhere.
at least i'm finally in country. i should get some sleep.
for cotopaxi awaits.
3 comments:
First world problems getting to the new world.
Ugh - a Guayaquil arrival is so much less fun than Quito. I hope they flew you back up to the capital. I've been on one too many a school-bus 6 hour bus ride from Guayaquil and I wish it upon no one.
Finally caught up on your blog. Very nice to get to read from you again :).
un abrazo fuerte,
jess
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