June 18 - First Class Is a Bowl of Warm Nuts

We left on a Saturday, earlier in the morning than either of us liked, due to the whims of the shuttle company, which feared dropping off its passengers late. So, with plenty of time to spare, we made our way to the e-ticket counter, through security, out to the gate, and eventually onto the plane.

Due to D's insane amount of frequent flyer miles, and the oddness of our route (the so-called "open jaw" meaning we were going to return via a different airport), we ended up with first class tickets. Neither of us had ever flown in first class, and it was a simultaneously titillating and guilt-fraught experience. The first initimation of how different it was going to be was, of course, the size and comfort of the seats, followed by glasses -- of real glass -- of juice and water offered as we were taking our seats. Later, once the flight was underway, a second round of beverages was offered, along with one unexpected detail that summed up the whole experience for me.

This was a small white cup or bowl, about the size and general appearance of half of an eggshell, filled with mixed nuts -- walnuts, cashews, peanuts -- and they were warm. First class is a bowl of warm nuts, it seems.

The rest of it continued in this vein -- linens were placed on our tray tables, and on the trays themselves. The silverware was real metal (except for the knives, which were a silvery plastic -- which I found odd, given that the forks, or even a broken glass, would have made a much more formidable weapon), and the glasses, as noted, were of real glass. The options were either a grilled chicken Caesar salad, or salmon with fruit. (Recalling Airplane independently, both of us ordered the chicken.) Dessert was a chocolate chip cookie, and it too was warm. All of this was presented with great solicitousness by the flight attendants (which meant that I said more thank-yous in a few hours than I normally do all week), which was the weirdest part of the whole thing. It made me wonder about the effects on the psyche of people who fly first class regularly, or who learn to take the whole thing for granted. We were isolated and protected from the hoi polloi in back, even at the end of the flight. There was some sort of a medical emergency on board, and while we too stayed in our seats to ensure that the EMTs could get through, once they'd reached their patient we were allowed to leave although no one in coach was. (Partly this was because the person in question was in the very back of the plane, but it still made us reek with privilege.)

When I wasn't being distracted by the perks of first class, I was looking out the window. When we flew out, we flew over many of the hills that had been burned by the fires in November 2003. They were still bare, and many still rather blackened. This produced an interesting effect with regards to the roads that spiraled around and curled their way up them. The roads were lighter in color, and very easy to see, and with the way they twisted and curved around the changes in elevation, the thing they most reminded me of were the paths taken by leaf borers through their hosts.

The lack of vegetation also made it easy to see the tortured and wracked shapes that typify California geology; great rocky uptilts, striated slabs lying on their sides, mounds of rocks and boulders, deep sunken basins. Then we leveled off, the nuts came, and I didn't look out the window again until we were over the Rockies. Although I have flown over them many times before, they are always shocking, being not only so big and so tall but so wide, just ranks and ranks of tall upthrust rock still with snow on them even in summer.

Finally we came to our destination, a land of fluffyness and fields lit up by the shining gleam of the setting sun's light, siloes and cars glowing against green grass and trees and tall luxurient weeds. We made our way through the airport (which was filled primarily with blond white people, skinny as children and plump as adults, who reminded me of my father's cousins -- the only diversity around the baggage carousel came in the form of one black man and a group of Eastern European conventioneers), got our rental car from two very bored young people (an interesting female-male, light-dark, plump-thin pair) who cracked jokes and cheerfully extended our reservation an extra day, and headed out into the dark.

The freeway (or is it an expressway? D. tells me that there are no such things as freeways outside of the West Coast) was straight, boring, fast. It was easy to find our exit, even in the dark. Things got even darker as we moved away from the main drag, and wound our way into the edges of Small Town. We found our hotel (run, as so many are these days, by a family of Indian-Americans), dropped off our things, and headed into town in search of dinner. We were disappointed. Small Town is, apparently, a place where the restaurants close at 8pm. (We've gotten used to relatively early closings here in San Diego, where the hour the sidewalks roll up tends to be 9pm, but closing this early was unexpected.) We were there at about 9:30. So we drove back toward the freeway (hah! I retain my Westernness!) and its handful of chain restaurants, and ended up being almost the last customers at the KFC. We took our food back to the hotel, called our parents, and went to bed, where we endured the seemingly endless giggles, chuckles, and guffaws in the room next door, until finally we fell asleep.

Comments

[yami]

D. is totally lying to you. We do have freeways in the Midwest, though people sometimes err on the side of "highway". They certainly aren't "expressways" - at least not west of the Mississippi, perhaps things change if you are close enough to corrupting Rust Belt influences.

[Rana]

That's useful to know. Is the distinction between highway and freeway the same? (That is, freeways are the huge multi-lane things, while highways are high-speed roads of usually two lanes or fewer each way.)

[yami]

The distinction is basically the same, but freeways out here usually have just two lanes each way so I'd revise your distinction downwards a bit - "highways" have two lanes, total, mostly, and two-lanes-each-way-with-ramps is "freeway".

Where it gets confused are things like unlimited access four-lane roads (i.e., no on-ramps, just normal intersections with stop signs) - particularly ones that have only recently been upgraded from two-lane highway status.

It's too bad there wasn't a dialect survey question about this!

[Tiruncula]

I should chime in from the east-of-Mississippi midwest and say that to me, a highway is definitely a big multilane affair. For me, if a road has only two lanes (one each way), it's not a highway. A highway that you have to pay for is a turnpike. You see signs saying "expressway ends" when a highway dwindles down to an ordinary (if wide) strip-like road with periodic stoplights, but nobody actually calls them expressways in daily life.

[Phantom Scribbler]

East of the Hudson, I have only heard "expressway" used to describe one road -- "the (Southeast) Expressway." Everything else involving high speeds is a highway. We have no freeways here.

Can you tell I loooove regional vocabulary details?

[Daybreak]

It's freeway/tollway here in really big red state as well. Occasionally, people will use "interstate." I've never heard "expressway" except on signage.

The silverware was real metal (except for the knives, which were a silvery plastic -- which I found odd, given that the forks, or even a broken glass, would have made a much more formidable weapon), and the glasses, as noted, were of real glass.

I loved this observation. Yes, it's all about symbolism rather than reality. Because it is the symbolism not the reality that counts: plastic knives are the high price the rich pay so that we can all feel safe. Imagine the sacrifice! I think that about sums up life in America these days.

\*/

[Daybreak]

Oh, and here a highway is any road with few stop lights and a speed limit above 55.

\*/

[russianviolets]

No, I'm in the midwest and east of the Mississippi, and those things are definitely freeways. Sometimes, they can be tollways, but I've never heard expressway used except on signs. And highway? Nope.

[Tiruncula]

Well, I'm on the very easternmost edge of the midwest, so we probably have a lot of eastern influence on our terminology, especially as many of the highways you can get on around here would take you into non-midwestern states.

[timna]

I'd say upper midwest is highways, though interstate is often used as well. no freeways or expressways in our area.

other than the food, did you like it?

[Rana]

Actually, I did like flying first class, but it also made me feel terribly guilty. Not so much that I didn't deserve it, but that the people in coach deserved it as well, and they weren't getting it.

I will add more on the trip over the course of this week.