Ah. Time to settle down and enjoy the flight. Just relax. Ease my seat back. Stretch my legs. Stop press. None of this is possible. Firstly, the engines are making the sort of racket I do not appreciate at 40,000ft. They seem to be protesting much too loudly for my comfort. I have always felt that sitting on the wing was the safest place on an airplane as I read somewhere that it was the most solid construction-wise but obviously not so safe if the engines are going to explode at any minute. My discomfort is compounded by the fact that my 6ft frame and size 13 feet just cannot seem to fit comfortably in my seat. And to add to my woes the seats cannot be “relaxed”, that is there is no button to put the seat back er back. Hmmm. I have never come across this before. I mean even your base model Chanchanbellsolido planes in Naija at least give you the opportunity to rest your seat back (thereby giving you more room to drop to your knees for prayer as and when needed). Okay, well I am saving over £600 and it is a two hour flight so I will just have to grin and bear it (suffering and smiling as Fela would say).
With an active imagination like mine you need to be able to focus on things otherwise your mind starts to drift to planning world destruction or at least doing painful things to Blair and Bush. Or you start thinking again about Halle Berry and how she is wasting her life (sure an Oscar is nice and all but hardly keeps you warm at night does it?). And so it was that I decided to take in our cabin crew. I wonder how airlines actually go about hiring for this role. Do the premium airlines take the cream off the top and then the rest sort of filter down the scales. Our cabin crew was exactly what I would expect on a budget airline. Not glamorous but also trying very hard not to be duds. There was the chap who fancies himself a bit of a rebel what with his hair gelled into a Mohawk and the other one who fancied himself a bit of a ladies man – what with the strutting and posing and pushing out of chest.
The funniest part of the flight was actually when I overheard one say to the other “can you get X to guard the door?”. WTH? Is something about to go down? Why does X need to guard the door? It turns out that they were about to serve the Pilots their snacks and one of them had to stand in front of the open cockpit door for security. Or as she put it “so an attacker would have to go through that person to get to the cockpit”. Hmm. Very interesting and I am sure works very well on paper. However the fact that X turned out to be this Asian girl who was about 4ft 10” and probably weighed the same as my carry on luggage slightly defeated the objective. I am damn sure if I had sneezed loudly enough the poor thing would have jumped straight through the cockpit out of fright. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.
Ciao Bella. Milan here we are. After a 45 minute cab ride from the airport to the hotel we finally check into our suite and the girls are more than happy. They have managed to suffer the indignity and trauma of a budget flight in silence in the hope that the hotel will more than compensate for their distress and it does. They are particularly excited that the shower has six electric settings. I am just happy that we have separate rooms with our own individual plasma screens. It’s bad enough having to watch their programmes in English, if I had to watch them in Italian I would throw myself out the window. Damn we are only on the first floor so this would only mean a slight concussion and broken ankles and not the instant death that would make a strong impression on them. Damn. Oh well you cannot have everything. (See what I mean about my imaginiation?)
Out on the town after getting instructions from the front desk. The lady tells us there is a train station about five minutes walk from the hotel. By this stage the girls are looking at me like “excuse us dad, but you did say this was a holiday did you not? So what is it with the budget flights and now you want us on the train? Public transport? How will we ever be able to face friends and family again?” But I am determined to expose them to reality. When I were a lad I used to walk barefoot to school, backwards, in the rain etc etc (of course they know that I went to ADRAO and was chauffeured to school every day but it’s the thought that counts, no?) So off we go to find the train station which apparently is five minutes away. Unfortunately for me, four minutes away is a taxi rank which is how we ended up in a Multipla being driven into town. That whole educating the children thing can wait after all they have suffered enough for one day.
We arrive at the Duomo cathedral and I am left with my mouth hanging open for a good five minutes. It is one of those buildings that makes you ponder how we can say that humankind had developed when we have gone from building these sort of magnificent edifices to the Trump tower? I mean this building is just staggering in its absolute beauty. Now I might be a Muslim but that does not stop me from appreciating Christian beauty like this wonderful Cathedral, St. Paul’s in London and Iyawo (see what I did there?). Unfortunately I am unable to post any pictures because the $700 camera that was forced on me by a shyster in NY less than a year ago has gone kaput but I would urge you to check it out on the web.
We then took a tour of Milan and what struck me the most was the architecture and the civilised way it was all put together. There was lots of green, parks, public scultutres and works of art and I absolutely loved all the buildings, both residential and commercial with their little courtyards. We then went on from there to the Castle -Castello Sforzesco (pictured above although this does not do it justice) which is now stuffed full of artefacts, scultures, works of art etc. The vastness of the castle itself is something to behold. To imagine that this infrastructure was put together by man just proves to me that there is a still a question mark as to whether we as a species are currently living up to our potential. Where is the eighth wonder of the world I ask you?
With an active imagination like mine you need to be able to focus on things otherwise your mind starts to drift to planning world destruction or at least doing painful things to Blair and Bush. Or you start thinking again about Halle Berry and how she is wasting her life (sure an Oscar is nice and all but hardly keeps you warm at night does it?). And so it was that I decided to take in our cabin crew. I wonder how airlines actually go about hiring for this role. Do the premium airlines take the cream off the top and then the rest sort of filter down the scales. Our cabin crew was exactly what I would expect on a budget airline. Not glamorous but also trying very hard not to be duds. There was the chap who fancies himself a bit of a rebel what with his hair gelled into a Mohawk and the other one who fancied himself a bit of a ladies man – what with the strutting and posing and pushing out of chest.
The funniest part of the flight was actually when I overheard one say to the other “can you get X to guard the door?”. WTH? Is something about to go down? Why does X need to guard the door? It turns out that they were about to serve the Pilots their snacks and one of them had to stand in front of the open cockpit door for security. Or as she put it “so an attacker would have to go through that person to get to the cockpit”. Hmm. Very interesting and I am sure works very well on paper. However the fact that X turned out to be this Asian girl who was about 4ft 10” and probably weighed the same as my carry on luggage slightly defeated the objective. I am damn sure if I had sneezed loudly enough the poor thing would have jumped straight through the cockpit out of fright. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.
Ciao Bella. Milan here we are. After a 45 minute cab ride from the airport to the hotel we finally check into our suite and the girls are more than happy. They have managed to suffer the indignity and trauma of a budget flight in silence in the hope that the hotel will more than compensate for their distress and it does. They are particularly excited that the shower has six electric settings. I am just happy that we have separate rooms with our own individual plasma screens. It’s bad enough having to watch their programmes in English, if I had to watch them in Italian I would throw myself out the window. Damn we are only on the first floor so this would only mean a slight concussion and broken ankles and not the instant death that would make a strong impression on them. Damn. Oh well you cannot have everything. (See what I mean about my imaginiation?)
Out on the town after getting instructions from the front desk. The lady tells us there is a train station about five minutes walk from the hotel. By this stage the girls are looking at me like “excuse us dad, but you did say this was a holiday did you not? So what is it with the budget flights and now you want us on the train? Public transport? How will we ever be able to face friends and family again?” But I am determined to expose them to reality. When I were a lad I used to walk barefoot to school, backwards, in the rain etc etc (of course they know that I went to ADRAO and was chauffeured to school every day but it’s the thought that counts, no?) So off we go to find the train station which apparently is five minutes away. Unfortunately for me, four minutes away is a taxi rank which is how we ended up in a Multipla being driven into town. That whole educating the children thing can wait after all they have suffered enough for one day.
We arrive at the Duomo cathedral and I am left with my mouth hanging open for a good five minutes. It is one of those buildings that makes you ponder how we can say that humankind had developed when we have gone from building these sort of magnificent edifices to the Trump tower? I mean this building is just staggering in its absolute beauty. Now I might be a Muslim but that does not stop me from appreciating Christian beauty like this wonderful Cathedral, St. Paul’s in London and Iyawo (see what I did there?). Unfortunately I am unable to post any pictures because the $700 camera that was forced on me by a shyster in NY less than a year ago has gone kaput but I would urge you to check it out on the web.
We then took a tour of Milan and what struck me the most was the architecture and the civilised way it was all put together. There was lots of green, parks, public scultutres and works of art and I absolutely loved all the buildings, both residential and commercial with their little courtyards. We then went on from there to the Castle -Castello Sforzesco (pictured above although this does not do it justice) which is now stuffed full of artefacts, scultures, works of art etc. The vastness of the castle itself is something to behold. To imagine that this infrastructure was put together by man just proves to me that there is a still a question mark as to whether we as a species are currently living up to our potential. Where is the eighth wonder of the world I ask you?
Final part tomorrow (p.s - I need an editor!)
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3 comments:
Haha!!!! I think the guy with the mohawk was the same guy on our flight!!!!!!
I urge you to see venice, there is no sight like that, a city on water, very breathtaking!!!!
Chanchanbellsolido...hahahaha, nice one. That should come out in some Naija tabloid. & LMAO as oyinbo ppl de rush plane. Who'd have known? Thanks for sharing! :P
"...How will we ever be able to face friend and family again?” roflmao!
I wan laff die for here o!
Can't wait for the last part. Viaggio sicuro on your return
hmm halle berrystill on your mind eh, ok you are looking for an editor shey u will soon get a lawyer
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