The Nerd's Eye View

The seat is slightly damaged I think as it will occasionally drop back a couple of inches before resetting itself. The entertainment screens, rather than being in the seat just ahead of you, are set into the cabin ceiling about 14 feet away. The appear to be postage stamp sized and discolored. In addition they are currently showing music videos of carefully disheveled young men, with well tended five o'clock shadows plucking desolately at guitar strings in empty rooms and mewling about something or other. I wish I was exaggerating but there were just three of them in a row. Fortunately there is a nice collection of 18th century German classical on one of the radio stations although that's beginning to wear thin also.

I'd like to take a moment now to discuss airplane food. Not that this is a surprise to anyone who's flown in the last 50 years or so, but, well, it's not very good. What is slightly remarkable though is the mannwe in which it is not very good. Bearing in mind that I was headed to Germany enroute to Italy, I was slightly concerned about the preparation of my food and so I requested a "Muslim Meal". This was rather a mistake, I found, because although my meal arrived earlier than the others' it was somewhat ... lacking. I can only imagine that there is a lab somewhere in the Black Forest where Lufthansa gnomes are putting together these meals based on extensive research at a small Pakistani restaurant run by a Norwegianin Thule, Greenland.

The food was mostly tasteless, a desultory chicken with sticky rice and a chick pea concoction that was rather dry. The salad was a stiff dollop of some sort of reconstituted hummus on two tiny leaves of lettuce, with a slice of tomato and a slice of cucumber stuck to it like piglets suckling. I had two types of gread, each made with flour that had been liberally mixed with Quikcrete (tm) , and a glass of mineral water (as it is common knowledge that that is what Muslims will drink if given their druthers. At least the dessert was somewhat palatable, although frankly the slices of melon garnished with strawberry did little to lighten my mood at the end of the meal. It does make me wonder if their kosher meals consist of gefilte fish and matzoh. Based on their narrow interpretation of "Muslim food" I can only imagine.

The only saving grace is the availability of broadband internet. I had read quite a bit about the new availability of airborne internet but wasn't aware that it was so easily accessible. I suppose transatlantic flights would be the first to get them, but frankly I'd rather they'd spent the money on personal video screens or maybe some decent food that is halal but not some sort of penance.

Still, I'm rather disappointed to tell the truth. I chose Lufthansa not just for it's cheap fare, but also because it has been a quality airline in the past. Now bracketed in by the bathroom smell, the sullen stewardesses and the cackling of a few teenaged German girls, I am beginning to wonder at my choice.