En Route to Washington, DC – still
I’m still in Germany (the aerial version) and getting rather fed up of existing in a land where they insist on speaking in a foreign language. Who won the war for Pete’s sake? Back in the Heinkel (an Airbus 340-330 actually and I’m very pleased to see it has two engines on each side) and it is more of English as the second language if at all. I really am the archetypical Kiwi/Pom abroad. Wogs start at Dover, the British Empire is all the bits coloured pink on the map and the world should speak English.
But at least I am in that seat again. I am an expert now and had the motors whirring away to get me into ‘drink, nuts and a bit of typing’ position without once having to consult the manual that is about the size of Auckland’s Yellow Pages. I have a good degree of confidence that this plane will get me to my destination (if it is not intercepted by a squadron of George’s finest) which is more than I can say for a plane we taxied past on our way to take off. Would you fly Air Uzbekistan? You wouldn’t if your saw the example of their fleet I saw you wouldn’t. Who paints a plane in light blue, lime green and white stripes? Even if it could take off I’m sure landing it all at the same time would be beyond it. No I’m sure the Dornier will get me to DC but I am increasingly worried that I don’t really want to spend six days in the Land of the Free.
I had my first dose of Septics in the brushed stainless steel Lufthansa Lounge and it weren’t pretty. The sort of woman I thought died out when JR left Dallas was telling all those who would listen (and all those that wouldn’t but couldn’t help it) about something. I can’t remember what it was but it was ghastly and very loud. She looked to be in her fifties which probably means she was nearer seventy, had hair that looked like it was the bits you throw away after a combine has been through your field and had teeth that would have cost the GDP of a small country to assemble. I am not sure I can take nearly a week of people like her. I’m sitting next to another Yank who seems a reasonable enough sort of cove so maybe there is hope. And there is always Carolina Classic Day and Henriques Day to look forward to. There is a small obstacle before we can get to this Nirvana however.
The cabin is full to overflowing with what I have the gravest suspicions are Kraut gastroenterologists. This is a chilling reminder of why I left Milford in the first place. I am going to a Conference and it starts, gulp, tomorrow. I have never felt less in ‘conference mode’ in my life. I really had better go tomorrow though as it is being paid for and I am basically an honest sort of a chap. I am already feeling a little (well not much really) guilty that I’m wagging Monday and Tuesday to drive all over Maryland and New Jersey to look at boats. I hope what I have taken to be Kraut quacks aren’t looking at me, nodding sagely to themselves and saying ‘That bloke looks like a sawbones from Aoteoroa and he looks like he’s off to the States to look at 30 foot express boats under the guise of going to a conference’. I’m sure I look very shifty. I wonder if that bloke in 8K has the HR Department of the University programmed into speed dial on his phone?
The AirShow shows we are flying over Norfolk and the flight deck has the effrontery to make an announcement in German. I’ll get on the blower and get the Wingco at Nether Wapping to scramble a squadron of Spitfires if you don’t start speaking proper. Ah that’s better. We now have a Bavarian version of the Queens English and what is this? We are going to be late? A German plane is going to be late. I hope the pilot hasn’t got too many close relatives and the family don’t get a bill for the bullet. But hello, another example of Teutonic slackness. The laptop power supplies for the whole cabin aren’t working so Mein Kapitain probably won’t get the luxury of a shot from a Mauser in the back of the head. They are, as I type, taking the Bosendorfer to bits in Lufthansa HQ, Washington for a more appropriate end to the poor wretch’s life.
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