My Travels, Part Three: Lufthansa to Boston

Ugly Frankfurt airport from outside my airplane window.

On the second flight, from Frankfurt to Boston, I was able to charge my laptop and iPod, which I was so grateful for. I am lucky on this flight yet again because I have two seats all for myself - for a while, I let my computer charge in the comfort of its own Lufthansa seat.

Again, this is a nice plane! I like the Lufthansa business class a lot.

My short legs could not reach anywhere near to where my laptop bag was!

However, the takeoff was one of the worst I have ever experienced, and I think it may have been because I was seated directly behind "the nose" of the plane. It was awkward, shaky, and scary. I love the feeling of takeoff but this time, I couldn't wait for us to be stable!

Soon, it did indeed stabilise and I was left sitting in my seat, staring at the seatbelt sign. For some unknown reason, I was feeling EXTREMELY ill. My head was hurting, my ears were popping, but worst of all: my stomach was CHURNING. My stomach had been misbehaving for a while, but after that takeoff I felt even worse.

I have never, ever, in my memory, vomited on a plane ride. I've never even really felt that queasy. This time was totally different. I went to the bathroom before the seat belt sign turned off for like, the first time ever. Although I am clumsy and awkward as a person, I follow the rules in general. I understand that the plane is still shaky and we need to get the clear before we can move. But, well, DAMN! I felt horrible! I just couldn't find the dumb paper bag they give you to throw up in until I got back from the bathroom.

Oh, just in case you were thinking I spent the first few moments of the flight blowing chunks: no. I didn't throw up. Not even a little! It was a false alarm. However, I felt calmed down after a few seconds, just sitting there.

When I got back to my seat, I tried to silently apologise to the poor flight attendant who was sitting right there, watching me break all the rules. What is up with people seeing me do dumb/wrong things this trip? Anyway, he did try to stop me going to the bathroom but really - he couldn't drag me out of there. I went in anyway. For the rest of the flight, I smiled at him and was SUPER polite. I felt so bad!

I got my menu and looked at the choices I had in front of me. The only interesting thing is that I decided on a vegetarian main course even though I really, really wanted to get the lamb stew with polenta! I need to stop eating meat in general. I had been eating too much of it in Saudi.

Another more interesting thing that I realised was that the word for olive in Spanish is aceituna which is so similar to the Arabic word for olive, zeitoun. I know that Spanish and Arabic share a lot but it always creates a little spark in me when I see a relation.

When I was in Saudi, listening to Arabic music on TV made me realise the link between Spain and Arabic in terms of music. I know very well that Arabs can dance very well to Spanish music, and vice versa. If we look at one of my idols, Shakira, there you go! She blends the Latina and Middle Eastern very well. Hell, it's in her own name! The tie is linguistic, historical, and cultural. When studying Islamic architecture, I was really excited and interested in the Islamic rule in Iberia. It's so fascinating to me, to see the similarities in art - however, I always see that there is a different flair for each. I can't even describe it, but you can definitely tell when something is Spanish and something is Arab when it comes to dress, music, or food, or even the language - it doesn't sound the same.

Wow - I am REALLY digressing from my travels. Or am I? I go off on tangents in my head on the plane because I get bored and restless! I guess my ramblings are as much a part of my travels as the flight and the airports.

There isn't much you can do on a plane. You can rely on in flight entertainment, but that isn't always going to help. Emirates has channels upon channels of movies and TV shows and whatever to watch, but sometimes I look through the list and there is nothing I feel like watching! On this Lufthansa flight, there are a few episodes of things I could watch, but I don't feel like it, AND the movie selection is terrible. The newest in-stale-ment (get it? Hurr hurr) of the Shrek movie franchise? You've gotta be kidding me.

For the last hour and a half of the flight, they showed REALLY cheesy music videos on a central screen. Some were European, some were random like Jack Johnson and Michael Buble. I like those two guys, but I didn't really feel like seeing Johnson surf for a whole video or Michael Buble in the studio. I stuck to the iPod in general.

I could have read a book, but guess what? My only book on the plane was in the overhead bin. Remember what I said about the overhead bin and how I needed Herculean strength to get my case up there? No way in HELL would I get that down!

What I usually ended up doing was writing or playing Plants vs Zombies. OR eating, but come on! They GAVE me the food. I HAVE to eat it*!

I toyed with the idea of trying a fiction piece, but damn, do I suck at writing fiction. My settings and histories are always terrible. Maybe I should write about a real place…but then that might involve some research. Write about a place I know? If anyone from that place reads it, they'll be able to pick out all of my errors! That's supposed to be a good thing, but here's a secret (not really): I am terrified of criticism. That basically means that I need MORE of it because I can't just go living my life with everyone telling me I am perfect. That's living in a delusion.

One thing I actually did write was a whole thing about perfection and praise and how it can destroy a life. Maybe I'll expand on that for another blogpost on another day! I also wrote a very emotional piece related to Mauritius that I am actually SCARED to share. Like really, really scared that people will look at me differently and hate me. Hmmm…that ties in with yet another piece of writing…

Yes, the flight had been spent writing. Nothing else of interest really happened. Oh, that flight attendant who caught me red-handed earlier in my air crime seemed to be COMPLETELY confused by my only drinking water. He finally smiled when I ordered a coffee. What was that about?

Finally, after the flight of rather boring things, where I went 20,000 times to the toilet (what is up with me and the damn airline toilet?) I don't have too much to say about it. I DID eat very nice cake very, very quickly.

See that? Done in less than a minute.

Finally, I arrived in Boston and well...I am here. Tomorrow, you shall be hearing about that. What a long, long day it has been...so...tired...

Zzzzz...


*No I don't.