Flying to Ethiopia (Second Leg)

I arrive into JFK at a reasonable hour and hop the Airtrain from the Delta Terminal to the Polyglot International Terminal. The exciting news is that we will be flying the first regularly scheduled Emirates flight of the new A380. I believe that Emirates has the first A380, so this is the first regular flight ever for the behemoth. There's virtually no line for the Emirate check-in so I stroll right up to the agent and do my best to get an exit row or bulkhead. No dice. I'm told the flight is oversold. He convinces me that I'm lucky to be able to get an adjacent seats with Scott.

I eat dinner and get through security pretty quickly. I settle down at an unused gate to read, listen to music and recharge my phone. I manage to get a call into my parents so I can say "good-bye" to Julia and Lizzie. I get a call from Scott. He'd already called to tell me he was on his way, so I'm expecting the "I'm here; where are you?" call. Instead I get the "I forgot my passport. I'm going back to get it!" call. Its still about 3 hours before departure, so I'm actually not that worried. Scott, on the other hand, asks me to find an agent and "stall the plane". I'm amused for a few minutes as I think about how I can stall a plane that isn't leaving for several hours without ending-up at Gitmo. I decide to defer any stalling action until we're sure it's necessary. A few text exchanges later and Scott is standing at the gate well before they're read to board.

I'd taken a look at the plane when it was out on the tarmac and it really is massive. Two levels front to back. The Business and First Class passengers board directly on their own jetway from their own lounge so they never have to mix with the coach passengers or even set foot on the coach level.

My only real concern is that I'll end-up in a seat next to someone who hasn't bathed recently. I'm not terribly sensitive, but this is a 13+ hour flight. We board and I give Scott the aisle seat and I take the inside seat. My seatmate arrives and she looks well-bathed. I breath a sigh of relief and inhale an overwhelming melange of perfumes. It smells like she just came from running the gauntlet at Bloomingdales. Actually, "running" suggests she tried to avoid being sprayed by every perfume known to man; it seems that she rather "sauntered" to ensure a full dosage. No matter, she's nice and the perfume will wear off.

The Emirate's entertainment system (ICE) is completely over the top. There are movies, TV shows, Games, a lot of music, etc. You can create your own playlists from the music selection. And you can save all your settings to a jump drive. The UAE motto seems to be "if you can't do it completely over the top, don't bother." Coolest of all are three cameras on the outside of the plane - one in the nose looking forward, one on the bottom looking straight down and one on the tail looking down and forward towards the nose. It was very cool to watch the take-off from those cams.

Once in the air Scott takes some magical sleeping elixir, sets his video to "The Bucket List" and promptly drops off for nine (NINE!) hours. I listen to my playlist, read, watch "Iron Man" (pretty good), read, etc. "The Bucket List" is in infinite repeat on Scott's screen and I keep seeing the same scenes over reminding me that time is passing. Just as I try to sleep the woman to my left pulls out her Ziploc bag of perfumes. She applies a heavily scented skin lotion to her arms. Spritzes her wrists with one perfume and her face with another. She does this once again during the flight and again right before we land. I finally doze off with my head turned away from the perfumery and get about 3-4 hours. Before landing, I watch a BBC comedy called "The IT Crowd." It has me in tears. I have to download it to see whether its really that funny or fatigue affected my judgment.

We land in Dubai and walk a long, long way. We get through customs and get a shuttle to our hotel.