aBe PaZoS SoLaTie

Ilushin 96

Mon Feb 21, 2011

Image

We didn’t sleep much last night. We are now ready to take off in Moscow.  I’ve been preparing the trip for many days but for me the trip starts in this moment, right after entering this plane. The first thing I noticed was that the fuselage looks like it’s bent. As if the plane was originally shorter and then they changed their mind and glued an extension to make it longer. Like two macaroni pieces glued together.

That would explain why my window seat has no window: I must be seating in the glued zone. 

The second thing many of us noticed is that the seat numbers are not above the seats, but in the back of the seat. In the back of the seat in front of you, not in the back of your seat. Many of us got it wrong so we all had to change places. I suspect one of the stewardesses is a robot. She doesn’t blink or smile. The toilet looks like imported from an old train. The toilet seat is made of wood and the paint is falling off. There is a touch of decadence everywhere. Like a futuristic space ship designed in the 70s forty years later. Some lights don’t work and I see cracked electric cables through a crack above our heads. I try to peek through the window in front of me without luck: the wing covers 90% of what I see through that window. The ticket I bought mentioned a window seat Boeing 767. I got a windowless seat on a Ilushin 96, with no screen to watch movies, but with a fan embedded in the front seat. I can turn it on by pressing a button and observe how it spins. I can only grasp a word or two from all the security announcements in Russian or English with Russian accent. I think they probably mentioned that someone will distribute oxygen masks if we order them with enough time. Don’t take everything I write too seriously, I didn’t sleep enough. Let’s see how we find our CouchSurfing host once we arrive to Delhi at 4:30 AM.

Categories: photo text Tags: airplane couchsurfing Places: russia