Ok, 8.5 hour plane ride that began with one of the longest 'check luggage line' that I've ever been in. Amazingly, due to "German efficiency", said line which wrapped around 5 times PLUS had people hanging off the end after the red tape ended, I only waited for 16 minutes (yes, I timed it) before my suitcase was tagged and on its way to the final destination in the US of A.
The plane was sold out and so I was thankful for my aisle seat. HOWEVER- Lufthansa, you have totally failed in entertainment choices on this flight.
FIRST off we didn't have individual tv's. Really? That's something I expected from old United airplanes that fly across the country, but, on an international flight? No tvs in the seats? Really? Come now.
Even if I DON"T get have a touch screen and have to wait every 2 hours for a movie to start on one of the 8 channels available, I've almost ALWAYS have tv in the seat on international flights. Thing is, it's not that I'm a movie junkie or anything..half of the time I've already seen them already, but it makes the time pass SO much more quickly!
Ok, so no tv Lufthansa, PLUS- you decided that for the first TWO hours of the flight the entertainment option on that tiny flip down tv every 10 rows was: FORMULA ONE RACING and a program on SOCCER GOALS.
Really?
I KNOW it's Germany and everyone is all hot and heavy over Sebastian Vettel and their soccer teams...but..realllllly? There ARE women on this flight, you know this, right? I'm PRETTY sure women even outnumber men in the world population. Who thought it was a good idea to have the first two hours be an interspersed map of us flying over the UK and Iceland with our ground speed and temperature, and then man sports?!
Boring.
So THEN the captain came on and announced that our two inflight movies (TWO? It's almost 9 hours in the air! What about the other 6.5 hours?!) would be: Mr. Popper's Penguins and Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Really.
I'm sure ALLLLL of the multitudes of 8-12 year olds on the flight (read: NONE since it was not a holiday weekend or school vacation) enjoyed those!
Ok, bottom line, NOT entertained means I literally watched the minutes ticking by for 8.5 hours.
Secondly, man sitting in the middle seat next to me from Morocco- it's NOT ok to put your pillow, jacket, LEG and half of your SELF onto MY seat when I happen to go use the restroom or get some water from the galley!
I know you cleared it every time I came back, but really?
In addition, you could pay a bit more attention to your personal space generally, since you fell asleep with your head just a bit too close for comfort to both myself and the poor guy sitting in the window, changing your position about every hour and breathing VERY heavily.
Thirdly- Lufthansa airplane food is usually decent. But, your late afternoon snack was a puff pastry filled with paneer and curried vegetables- yea, INDIAN FOOD- spicy, gas-causing Indian food- which made for some interesting final hours around the lavatory areas.
Oh also, but I can't really complain about this because it was too cute- there was a couple with an 11 month old baby 2 rows behind me. If they were sitting, the baby was screaming. So they had to stand up with the baby in a sling the ENTIRE flight and thus we all learned that the baby (Natalya) was just adopted from Russia three days ago and the parents were still 'getting to know her' so didn't know how to really soothe her yet..hence the uncontrollable crying while sitting down. At any rate, it was sweet and a lovely story that had a good ending for the life of a child (we hope!), so I didn't mind it. Plus, babies really aren't THAT loud when compared to the roaring engine of a 747...or whatever kind of NON-TV-BUSTED airbus or Boeing I was on!
OK, fast forward to landing, being picked up by two best friends with balloon that said 'welcome home' and a flag of the US on the background, unpacking, Italian dinner, trying to stay up as late as I could and finally falling asleep at 10pm.
FIRST DAY OF REHEARSAL!
What I was expecting: First call- intro. to the production and first music rehearsal. Second call of the day- start staging- that maybe I wouldn't be called to since my character only sings in Act II and is 'part of the staging' in Act I.
What actually happened: First call- intro. to the production and oh, wait- two of our leads and the director are still not in town, so we will begin STAGING Act II.
Allllrightythen.
So we staged the first scene I'm in!
Then had a break for lunch, and in the afternoon was called to the musical rehearsal with our conductor.
Everything went really smoothly, but it's just odd that we're starting with Act II since that means I'll work very hard for these first few days, and then basically be blocked into the whole show and be doing 'run throughs' from a very early point in the show.
How I'm feeling- um, exhausted.
It's 9:24. If I can make it to 10pm again and then zonk out in bed without waking up at 4am I THINK I'll be over jet lag tomorrow.
First days are always more draining than usual too- it feels like you're singing for your bosses who hired you over one year ago- and you're hoping they still see and hear in you today what they saw and heard in you last year or whenever the audition was.
Ok, enough musings for this evening.
Where are my PJs?
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