You guys, I haven't even told you about how on the flight from Seattle to Dubai last week, I was bumped up to business class. On EMIRATES. On a 14.5-hour flight! It was AMAZING. I am not classy enough to NOT get excited about something like this.
It was a strange set of circumstances: I was flying alone (no under-16s to disqualify me from business class). I couldn't check in online ahead of time because my first flight was on Alaska Air (PDX-SEA). And by the time I got to SEA, it was almost time for that flight to be boarding. Economy was full by then and so someone had to take one for the team and go sit in business class. I was happy to oblige.
If you could have looked into my brain as I walked into business class and got settled in, it would have looked something like this: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. But on the outside, I tried to play it cool like my fellow passengers were, like I did this all the time, like they were acting like they did. Maybe they do. I don't know their lives. The attendant handed me a menu and had me fill out a card about my meal choices for the flight. Then she showed me how the seat worked. Because in business class, there are more options than just Recline.
I put my feet up - literally, it was almost like a La-Z-Boy, though of course not quite as plush. QUITE. - and read a book for a while. Then I watched Far From the Madding Crowd. They brought some warm mixed nuts and a Coke for me to drink. Warm mixed nuts, because in business class, you don't eat your mixed nuts cold like some caveman would. I kept watching the movie while they laid a white tablecloth over my extra large tray table, brought the first course of dinner, then the second, and then dessert.
I read some more of my book and then watched Cinderella. I love that movie. The movie screens in business class are huge and so far away from your seat that others can see what you're watching. After Cinderella finished, the middle-aged businessman next to me leaned over the partition between our seats and said "oh, that's a great one, isn't it? I just had to watch along with you for a while." I appreciated this sentiment and its expression very much.
Then they came and put a mattress on my almost-flat seat, dimmed the lights, and I went to sleep. Like, I actually slept. I cannot sleep on planes, so this was an amazing feeling. I woke up after a few hours and decided to watch Insurgent. By the end, it was almost time to land. So I freshened up using the special toiletries bag they gave me - toothbrush, toothpaste, facial cleanser and lotion, floss (!), etc.
The only hiccup was in the middle of the night when I pressed a button on my seat whose purpose I didn't know. I couldn't tell that it did anything, so I shrugged and went back to sleep. Then a few hours later when all the lights were back on, the guy in the seat next to me real casual-like re-rolled up the partition between us. That's what I'd done in the middle of the night when I pressed that button - retracted the divider. Nice one, Bridget.
When the plane landed, I was still travel-weary, but I felt generally well and full of energy. Usually after that flight I am a complete zombie. It was almost like a vacation - most of the time, I couldn't even tell I was on an airplane. I sat in a comfortable reclining chair and read books and watched movies while people brought food to me and then cleaned it up. When was the last time that ever happened to me? Oh yeah, never.
So thanks, Emirates, for a lovely send-off from my five years in the UAE.
