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Flying to Amman with Zara: Most Memorable Journey 2009

My most memorable journey this year did not take place in a car, but on a plane with “Captain”, from London to Amman, Jordan (where we got off) and then it continued to Ethiopia.  This is an excerpt from my travel journal written a day after the event:
Monday July 20th 2009
We got to the airport and tried to arrange seats beside each other but there appeared to be only 6 free places on the entire plane. We chose the 2 closest seats hoping that we could convince people to switch with us. “Captain” ended up between two Americans (Texan missionaries headed to Ethiopia), and I ended up in the middle between two teenagers, one who was crying hysterically, tears rolling down her cheeks. The other girl changed seats to be with a friend. We arranged a switch so “Captain” could sit with me.

The girl beside me, Zara, still crying, got off her phone when the stewardess told her for the second time that we were taking off. After a while she calmed down a bit, and started talking to us, and entertaining us with stories of her misadventures. Within 10 minutes of take off she was offering us candy, and gave some to the Americans too, who boldly asked for seconds. We took off with Zara firmly grabbing my arm. She explained that she always flew with her mom, and because of behaviour issues at school, was leaving her family in England for 9 months to stay with her grandparents in Ethiopia.  She was not pleased with this idea at all.

When the plane took off the Americans said “aaaah”. I think that they are not used to flying. It was a definite contrast from the usual silent takeoff.

Zara fell asleep really quickly, and “Captain” and I were chatting, and listening to the Americans. One of them was very excited about having a new toothbrush for his trip. He was also very interested in chatting with all the stewardesses. He called them all by name, and asked one named Deepa where she was from, and was astonished that she could possibly be from London.

There was a bit of turbulence during the meal service and one American kept pushing the call button. Finally a stewardess came and was irate with his impatience.  Apparently multiple pushing of the call button signals a serous incident, not a question about dessert. She was not charmed by his small talk or requests for seconds of cheesecake.

The rest of the flight was pretty smooth. Zara slept so soundly that we had to fasten her seat belt around her in preparation for landing. She woke up once speaking some foreign language to me and slept again. She grabbed my arm in her sleep, and woke up in time to say goodbye. We wished her well, and as we left we saw the American sneak into first class. Wonder how long Deepa let him stay there.

“Captain” and I had a good chuckle about how unusual that flight was, and how glad we were both there together.  I wonder how Zara’s doing now….

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.