It’s only tonight that I realise how much I love salmon.
I knew food in business class would be good. I knew it’d be better than the TV-dinner-style packaged chicken or beef options you get in economy. I guess I figured it’d be the same but just a little fresher.
No.
First off, fuck chicken and beef. They also have salmon.
Chicken is something I eat every day. (I buy wafer-thin sliced chicken from Tesco and snack on bits of it until it’s fully depleted.) Beef isn’t that much more exotic. But salmon is something I never eat myself. It has to be prepared, cooked, given proper attention to. Salmon consumption is a labour of love. You can’t just throw it in an oven and leave it for twenty minutes. So I don’t bother with it. I only eat it when it’s made for me, and that makes it a treat.
Hot salmon is wonderful. And this hot salmon had this luscious green sauce on it, and it came with mashed potato and roasted vegetables. It was perfect. And it was on a plate. The knife and fork came in a napkin, tied together with a fancy paper roll just like in a restaurant.
But even before the salmon, we had a starter.
A STARTER.
ON AN AIRPLANE.
Cheese and vegetables and meat, before we even get to our meal. And then this woman offers me bread from a fucking BREAD BASKET! And right at the start we got one of those hot flannel things to wipe our hands with! And all of this even before the salmon I was so psyched up to savour.
I think it was the best salmon I ever had.
My third glass of complimentary white wine will be my last, as the high altitude is making itself known. My eyes already feel drowsy, which is really the only effect I get of having alcohol in my system. So I’ll pace this with small sips until it’s gone, and then give myself to sleep. This is the first time I’ve been on a plane where I’m not counting the hours until landing, because I know I can just recline, sleep, and resume a normal sleeping pattern. (And it helps that Africa is only one hour ahead of the UK. I’ve never taken a late flight before, but it’s a great idea.)
I’m already thinking about how my flight from Johannesburg to Lusaka will take place in economy. That’s fine, but if the eleven hours back after my trip to Zambia is also in economy, I’m sure I’ll be harder to please. It’s easy to get used to this, and it’s a very long flight. Then again, I’m fully prepared for the possibility that I’ll have denounced all of my possessions and will be sleeping in the cargo hold as a result of seeing the impoverished conditions in Zambia up close, unwilling to even accept a seat on the plane while such injustices continue. It’s impossible to tell the effect it will have on me – but I know I’m a person of extremes. I’m curious to see what happens. I know this time will effect me profoundly, either way. And it’s exciting because I’ve never been to Africa before. By the time we land, I’ll have visited every continent on the planet except South America. (And Antarctica, but that’s kind of a different league.)
Oh god, I was just handed a box and inside was a triple chocolate mousse and a french almond. Dessert. This is my dessert, after my starter and my main course of salmon. I just had a three course meal on an airplane. The world is ridiculous.
The flight attendant just put a blanket down for my inevitable sleep. There is now nothing separating this experience from my bed at home except that I feel a little more alone than normal. Everyone I’m close to is at least 35,000 feet beneath me. I miss Charlie specifically – it’s really nice just having him around the flat all day, knowing we energise each other to do creative things and work harder at what we do. Okay – finish drink and sleep. No more writing. All this wine is making me sentimental. xD
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