Late Bloomer

I’ve always been a late bloomer, so I have to admit, this was my first time. Up until now, I had only flown Economy (i.e. steerage) and Premium Economy (i.e. slightly larger steerage). As I get on in the years I’ve found the long flights have been filled with less sleep and more restlessness to get into a comfortable position. The trip to visit my brother in Delhi awhile back was almost the death of me – by the end I thought I was going to collapse with exhaustion – thank goodness he was at the airport to pick us up.




Now, I write this after I just deboarded my first leg of the trip, in the luxury of the Business Class Lounge in Frankfurt – sipping my orange juice and having a bite to eat. I wanted to record all the things I didn’t even think about when looking forward to this trip – before I get spoiled and jaded.



The best thing, which is the entire reason to get bumped up, is of course, the sleeping arrangements. I shared my first time with Lufti. Now their seats don’t go completely 180 like some other airlines, but man, 170 or whatever it was is a lot better than sleeping upright. I had no trouble sleeping – I could sleep on my side and what I used to think of as a long trip to Europe just flew by. Granted, part of the time was taken up discovering all the little perks and figuring out the seat.



It was a different experience – the food was wonderful (for airplane food). They gave you a menu and you could choose your hors d’oeveres, entrée and dessert. Unfortunately, I was too full to enjoy the dessert – I was going to have crème brule and see what they were able to manage on a plane. I’m not a big fan of plastic – I don’t eat off it or with it. And everything was non-plastic (except the complimentary water bottle that was in the package of goodies and I never got a chance to drink). I love drinking from real glasses on the plane, and they were very waiter like, keeping an eye on my drink the entire flight and refilling it regardless of schedule.


No worries about where you were flying to, you got all the movies on demand. The remote, I never fully figured out, but it had over a half dozen buttons just for controlling the seat – even a memory button so you could keep your favorite configuration. The leg rest was key – being able to stretch out like on a chaise – it was marvelous. There was even a button for a massage, although I’ve never really taken to that feature – I prefer a masseuse, but I guess that’s in 1st class.



My neighbor was kind and not talkative until after we landed. However, he helped me with some of the features I stumbled on, like bringing out the table (they set it with linens before serving dinner!).



Overall quite a pleasant experience. I look forward to having a restful ‘night’ for the next leg and just sleeping the entire way.



The other perk that I remembered on my way to the airport, was that I perhaps qualified to be in one of the special lounges. It was strange as I’ve been in terminal E tons of times for international flights and never even noticed the door tucked away that led to this whole other world. The lounge had sandwiches and drinks and comfy chairs. I ended up walking around to explore and think that British Airway or Virgin Atlantic probably had the nicest lounges. But, hey, it was a step up from where I was before. The lounge here in Frankfurt is much larger and a bit nicer. They even have showers and I think I heard they had beds too, but didn’t see where. The food isn’t wonderful, but it’s nice to have free drinks (even beer and other mixed drinks if I was so inclined). The funny part about the lounges is that there is wait staff that are tucked away working on preparing the food and they just slide the mirrored backsplash and put food out. Of course the gender split is predominately male. In Logan there was a man coming out of the woman's bathroom!



On a completely different note, I had a little déjà vu arriving at Frankfurt. I realized that the last time I visited this airport was almost 15 years ago and was my most memorable experience to date traveling. Long story short, I was two minutes late and although I could see my plane, they wouldn’t let me on. By then I was a sweaty, tired, deutchemarkless teenager who only knew gezuintheit and farfenugen and no other german. And this was back in the day before credit cards and calling cards – well at least I didn’t have either. In the end, after my parents answered a frantic collect call in the middle of the night, they drove, not to Montreal an hour away, but to Newark, 6+ hours away to pick me up on a later flight and bring me home (12 hour round trip – thanks guys). In the end it all worked out, but it was a good test of coping skills for a young newbie.



Correction, I realized I passed through Frankfurt a few years back on my way to Cottbus, but the story sounds better this way.