Thoughts from the Air

(9:30AM) Two Feelings: Awake, Daft Punk

It’s 2AM and I feel wide awake. But that’s a good thing, because it’ll be 10AM in less than an hour. I’m flying over London at the moment, and after struggling to get some sleep on my transatlantic flight I’ve finally given up in exchange for a breakfast and some blogging. Speaking of which, the food (in coach) on this flight has been remarkably good. I’m no food tester, nor am I a cook, but the chicken for dinner and my fruit and egg muffin for breakfast tasted good and left me filled. I’m also very impressed with my $30 noise reducing earbuds. I got them on the way to the airport when I realized that I’d lost my good in-ear earbuds. It’s amazing how technology is changing. Now, they aren’t as good as my brother’s Bose headphones, but they’re darn close and 1/10 of the price. Looking down out from my tiny window I see a very hilly, maybe even mountainous seashore. I’ll have to look at a map later (Marble!) to figure out where exactly we are. Oh, my seat. I’m in 10H. Lets just say that I think it’s the best non-first class seat in the entire plane. And honestly, it might be better than many seats up there. The pros are all the legroom you could want, no space-reducing seat in front of me, a personal tray table, and I’m the first one to get food! Through the course of the flight I have noticed a few drawbacks. First of all, I am sitting right next to the galley. That means almost constant light and noise. It hasn’t been too bad with my earplug-like earbuds and my window seat, but I don’t know if I would say the same if I were in the isle. It already feels like people are walking past quite often. Although, at least it isn’t people lining up to go to the restroom.

I’ve got a power outlet at my seat. That’s just cool. I had forgotten about it when I was using my laptop earlier but now I’m making the best of it, charging up for my time in Amsterdam. If I had remembered that at the Minneapolis airport it would have made my life a little easier, if only because I wouldn’t have had to have searched around for an outlet. Then again, it was nice an quiet in the corner I found, and I managed to get some reading done.

Looking over at my seat mate’s display it looks like we’re midway between the east coast of England and our airport. I think that it would be really fun to stay for a few hours in the Amsterdam airport. We’ve been there as a family before and I really enjoy it. Especially if you have access to the KLM club, It feels more like this timeless place where you can relax and get work done in between flights. And I’m willing to bet that’s what they’re going for with the international hub.

Wow, kate (my editor program) has a spell check! That’s pretty cool, and certainly unexpected for a simple text editor. Anyways, I’m getting off topic now and it looks like we’ll be landing shortly, so I’m going to sign off for now. After one last thing that is. At the top of this post I have two things that describe how I’m feeling right now. Awake because my mind says to me that it’s 3AM but my body says “Yep, I’m awake.” Daft Punk because that’s who I’m listening to =). Goodbye.

(11:29AM) Comfortable, Traveller
I’m presently sitting at my gate (D-74) for the plane to Oslo. There are a couple of other people here, but the (limited number) of seats are mostly empty. I had forgotten how much I enjoy the Sherpole (I need the spelling on this) Airport. The engineering is fantastic, and there are so many just ‘interesting’ things around. For just one example, lets consider the gate. Rather than having all of the chairs and security machines flush with the walkway between gates, a multi tiered approach is used. I walked down a short set of stairs to an undercarrage area. Each gate is separate and partitioned, but is walled off with glass, meaning that I can see all of the surrounding gates and walkways. This allows for a quieter, calmer waiting area while leaving the main pathways open above. Well, I’m not sure if I worded those last few sentences well. While walking through the airport I didn’t feel tired at all. Finally, now that it is darker (and warmer) down at the gate, I’m suddenly exhausted. Op – Did the gate change? Let me investigate.

5 minutes later…
False Alarm, but it is time to board now. Bye!