I’m baaaaaack! (part two)

So there I was, in 30H, observing all these Mat and Minah Sallehs: this plane definitely is NOT going to Dubai! I didn’t recognize the language: sounded like German but it wasn’t. Turns out it was Swedish, they were Swedes, and the plane would be making its layover in Stockholm!

Oh maaaaan, that is one of the few times I regret not taking a window seat! We would be flying past Greenland, flying over Iceland… aaarrrggghhhh!! Territory I only have read about (more on this in a future blog), and what I read struck such a chord in me that I WILL visit someday… sigh…

So yeah, you may be wondering why I do not take window seats: From my many years of flying, I’ve come to the conclusion that the aisle seat is best for traveling long distances: then I dictate when I want to go to the loo or just walk around… otherwise I’d be stuck at the window, with the view but exercising great bladder contol and trying in vain to keep legs active! Bonus would be the rare occasion when the next two seats are empty – being able to stretch out across three seats makes such a difference in ability to and quality of sleep on these flights!

I checked out the inflight movies… and was delighted to see so many that I’d meant to catch but never did: National Treasure, Meet the Fockers, The Incredibles! But the sound sucked! Started with NT but couldn’t hear a thing; switched to MtF and watched it all the way although I missed quite a bit of the dialogue. Decided it was not worth it to catch the movies, and rummaged around their games section: They’ve changed/upgraded their inflight entertainment system, although as usual the economy class passengers get the short end of the stick. Couldn’t find Bejeweled anywhere, and there were no more Mario Brothers games, sob sob! But there WAS tetris (tho I somehow prefer playing that game on my phone, teeehee!), but I finally settled on a game Kosh had attempted to introduce me to, but we never played to completion because I didn’t want to do the math and the sound of the dice was really loud: Yahtzee. Yep – played that the way I’d play Bejeweled in previous flights – just about every waking minute (and there were plenty of those! Hardly slept at all…). Figured out best strategies and all – I even got as high as over 300 points!

So… back to the journey:

>>> Typical of Malaysians perhaps? What looked like a grandma, mother and very young baby decided not to follow their seat assignment in order to stay together, and put up such a fuss when the proper seat owner tried to claim his seat… in the end he agreed to give up his window seat for an aisle seat just in front of me… and then he was ‘rewarded’ by being bumped up to business class… ugh… why couldn’t that happen to me????

>>> When we were arriving in Stockholm, all I saw of the place was what I glimpsed out the window. Caught sight of what I first thought was a glacier, but on second thought it was probably a huge frozen lake. Oooof… in Urbana it was finally warmed up when I left, but that far north it was still that cold?? I wonder if their summers are moderate, or they too get baked… have to keep that in mind for whenever I get to visit properly…

>>> Was aghast at hearing English as she is Mangled by the air steward (and also the co-pilot, I think) making announcements over the PA system… Not only were most of the announcements made in a sing-song cadence, but the person kept running the words all together such that even I could hardly understand what was being said! On top of that there were the typical mistakes of wrongly-placed “s” (that’s mean…) and use of (we apologise for any inconvenient caused by the delay).

>>> “If you would like to see the areolas, you can see them on the left side of the plane” was a cryptic announcement made somewhere over Greenland (I think). Took me a while to decipher what it was all about: the aurora borealis!! Pity I was on the wrong side of the aircraft :- ( heck, we were probably well past the area by the time I figured it out :- p

Finally arrived at KLIA… whizzed past immigration (Gotta LOVE the “smart” passport!), bought the ERL ticket while waiting for luggage, passed Customs with no harassment, boarded the ERL, mom picked me up from Sentral, reached the apartment around 830am.

Sigh.

6 months of bank and credit card bills and statements and other miscellaneous mail waiting for me.

>>> Still have problems with the income tax people… omg I think the place is filled with idiots!! Looks like I will have to visit both Jalan Duta AND Kelana Jaya offices to solve “the mystery of the second tax account” once and for all!!

>>> Still have loose ends to tie up wrt the sale of my house… 8 months after the SPA was signed??!!! I’m surprised, and yet not surprised…

And to top it all of: the dysfunction of my family did not take long to start manifesting… ugh.

Overall… everything was pretty much as I expected it to be. Let’s hope I emerge from my time in Malaysia with my sanity intact!