I Love My Country and Musical Monday

Hi everyone! I am baaaaack! Thank goodness. Today I am taking myself out for a patty melt and fries, and ice cold, not lukewarm coke. I am so excited about that. Cheap thrills right?

So, how was my flight? I would rather have been strapped to the nose of the plane all the way home. At least that way, there would have been some legroom and some fresh air.

As for the food, my god, are they out of their everloving minds for the absolute crap they serve on airplanes and dare to call it food? Just ghastly, all airlines, all meals, unedible.

It's pretty bad when someone 5'1" yearns for legroom, that is all I can say. Do you know, that in all flights the taller people next to me were stealing my legroom, and elbow room, and I had to keep thrusting my limbs back into my space. I felt bad for them, but i'm not gonna sardine up for them.

Ok so I had 15 hours before I left Delhi without a hotel room. Indira Ghandi Int'l is a nightmare, incidentally. The people that work in that airport are just morons. Except for the Kingfisher Airlines employees, by the way, who in my opinion are bar none, the BEST airline in India. Kingfisher Airlines is owned by Indian business tycoon and GENIUS, Vijay Mallya, whose estate, incidentally is directly across the street from my pal Mahesh' residence! I'm telling you, they ought to start flying out of India, and I would use only them. Kingfisher not only makes rocking beer, but they definitely put Lufthansa to shame.

More on Lufthansa later.

But ok, an 11 hour flight after the 15 hours, then an 8 hour wait in Frankfurt airport. Now there you will find efficiency, and I am so sorry, but you will consistently find the ABSOLUTE RUDEST humans on the fucking planet. My god, what is that matter with those people? If an airport or airline employee acted that way in the US, they would find themselves unemployed, end of story.

And another thing about Europe. As if it didn't kill me enough that exchanging my handful of leftover rupess amounting to about $45. US Dollars, only gave me 17 Euros, imagine the anger and shame I felt when I saw handfuls of Indians, Africans, villagers in the airport, knowing that they had spent probably their life savings to go whereever they were going, but to KNOW that no way could they eat or buy even a bottle of water in that fucking airport. There is something very unfair about a bottle of drinking water costing $5 US dollars, don't you think? And, incidentally, German tap water will probably not kill you, but it tastes awful. My heart broke over and over, seeing Indian men and their families, standing wide eyed, shocked, looking at the food that they simply could not afford to buy.

Allow me to continue to berate the Frankfurt airport please. Ok, they were remodeling, and the entire ceiling was open and all the pipes electricity and whatnots were hanging out all over, and so I guess they decided, why let all that heat out through the ceiling, let's just skip the heat all together. Mind you it was -14 C outside, and nearly as cold in the airport. People were walking around with fur coats, boots and blankets wrapped about them. Would it have hurt those fuckers to turn on the heat? It was horrible.

Now, Lufthansa is the only airline that can get me from SFO to Bangalore in just two flights, so I use them, but man, they SUCK. That is, unless you have a few extra thousand dollars for first class. But, can you imagine paying $6,000 to fly to India? That is insane.

I had a good laugh with the woman next to me that while the people upstairs in their suites were enjoying lived boiled lobsters on their china plates while drinking champagne, that they would soon be tossing up a bag of chips into the air in economy, popping the bag as it came down. Those lucky enough to get some of those chips would eat, the rest would starve. We got really silly saying stuff like ok now they will run down the aisle with a cold stinky mop, slapping our faces with it, while upstairs they enjoyed hot showers and egyptian cotton towels. We got to laughing so hard that people around us started joining in with the Lufthansa berate. I nearly split a seam when the 6'4" man in front of us, who was clearly physically uncomfortable said that next time he gets on a Lufthansa flight he will bring his removable legs and place them in the overhead!

Ok, so after 8 hours in that hellhole, I got on my plane only to find that there were mechanical issues, and so there we sat for two more hours while the problem was repaired. The problem? One of the overhead bins would not latch and so they had to call in the experts. See, I would have done what Air India does, and whipped out my trusty duct tape and taped that damn thing shut, it's just luggage sheesh. Also, they could have emptied that overhead so that nothing could have fallen on anyone had it opened.

OK so 11 more hours of flight, awful food, grumpy ass stewardesses who acted entirely put out by my request for my own box of tissues since I have gotten a lousy cold and my nose was dripping uncontrollably. After suggesting I head to the bathrooms each time, I scoffed and pointed to the food carts, bearing that disgusting vile putrid stuff called "food", which were currently blocking both ends of the aisles leading to the bathrooms. One of the grumpy stewardesses then tossed some of those rough paper towels and me and told me to sit down!

OMFG! I just want a tissue, you bitch!

OK so about an hour later, another stewardess storms up to my seat and practically throws the box of tissues at me! Gee thanks, ma'am, why not just slap me over the head with it instead, it might knock some of this phlegm loose!
Ok soooo finally I get to SFO...thank god, and there is my Gary and Little Rita with hugs, turkey sandwich, icey cokes and a warm ride home. And yes, when I got home, I did kiss the ground.

Today I am just having fun playing with my giant fabric stash. This year, thanks to Mr Garys extra suitcases, I spent no money on shipping yet brought home more textiles than ever!
BTW, I made it home with .20 of a euro....I dont know if its called cents or what, and about 1.75 in US coins. I thought I was cutting it close last year, with only $9.00 in rupees left.

So, I know that was a bit of a rant, and it is musical Monday, so I will go find something patriotic to post. YES, I do love America. We might have an asshat for a president, and we might be pigs for oil, but we are nice, and kind and friendly and we know how to wait in lines, and how to be polite to each other, and we clean our public toilets regularly, and we smile.

It's good to be home.

Ok Brookers, take it from here......