On Saturday we left for our holiday in Singapore. We will travel from Switzerland first to Amsterdam, and after a few hours on to Singapore. This time we well be travelling with KLM. While checking in in Switzerland, we asked the clerk if we could sit next to each other, WITHOUT the aisle in between. The clerk replied with a smile, saying that as we have booked together (he can see this in his system), we should get seats next to each other. He’ll just double check to be sure. After a few clicks with his mouse, his professional smile vanished for a moment and he got that „oh-shit“-look on his face. It came out that we will not sit next to each other, but behind each other. in the middle of a three-seat row. That must be about the crappiest seat available. The clerk tried to re-arrange our seats, but there weren’t any two seats available next to each other. The only thing he could suggest was, that we tried at the Gate in Amsterdam. Good start for a 16-hour trip.
The flight itself was quite good, the plane (Boeing 747-400) was only half full. The food consisted of crackers and chocolate cookies. The Flight was only about 90 minutes, so no trouble with the food.
When we arrived at Schiphol, first thing that pleasantly surprised me was, that everything was so close. It took us only about 20 minutes to get to the gate where our next flight would leave from. So we sat at the gate reading some magazines, waiting for the counter to open, so we that could ask to change the seats. about 30 minutes before boarding should start, the counter opened. My Girlfriend went to explain our situation and to ask if we could change our seats. I must say, the ground-staff of the airport was trying very hard, and did everything they could…to ignore us. Only useful answer we got was: „Try your luck aboard the plane“. Well, thanks for that excellent service. When we boarded to our Boeing 777-200, we asked the people sitting in the seats around us, if they would swap with one of us. Of course, no one wants a middle seat, So we took the seats assigned to us and sat behind each other for the whole flight.
After Takeoff we were served some drinks and some smoked almonds. Yay, I absolutely love them. Unfortunately everyone around us liked them too, so I had to be happy with the little sachet we got :-). About an our later, supper was served. I had Chicken in a Dijon-mustard sauce, some Ebly-salad and some kind of sponge-cake with vanilla sauce for dessert. Considering that it basically was microwave-food, it was quite nice. Afterwards, we were served tea or coffee (very strong coffee). Too bad that I didn’t see that one could have had a digestif with that. 🙁
After that I watched a Movie on the Entertainment system. This was the first flight where the entertainment system was fully active, meaning that you could watch the movie you wanted, listen to music, play games (even multiplayer) and watch TV. While flipping through the movie library my smile grew broader and broader. There were surely about 60 Block-Busters available. Same with the CD-Library. And how many movies did I watch? ONE. After that I was so tired, that I started the new CD from Carla Bruni (filed under Easy Listening) and slowly fell asleep. Thinking of it, not many people can say that they were sang into sleep by the french First Lady :-D.
But even „La premier Dame“ cannot get you a good nights sleep if your in an economy-class seat in a full Aircraft. I woke up a few times during the flight. I believe once somewhere over Iran and once around Burma. Somewhere over Phuket they started to serve breakfast. I already looked forward to bread rolls, croissants, butter, jam and honey. I got Butter and bread roll right, but it was accompanied by some Fresh fruit slices (the Grapefruit made everything quite sour), some plain yogurt with sweet fruit compote on it and scrambled egg with Rösti. Sounds gorgeous? Rememer, we were 35’000 feet above ground, The only piece of kitchen equipment up there is a microwave. Unfortunately, the Rösti tasted just like that. The rest was quite nice considering, and it gave me a good start from a very bad night’s sleep.
We even arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule in Singapore. Unfortunately, we lost this gain at the immigration checkpoint. Although they had all the counters open, the hall was packed with people. Once we got through the immigration check and bought our things at the duty-free shop, we headed for the baggage claim. Last time we went to Singapore, our little trolley-suitcase was damaged. The handle was broken. I asked my girlfriend if she remembered, she nodded, and our suitcase came along the conveyor. With a broken handle…. Exactly the same thing like last time. At least we already knew where to go and which form to fill out. 🙂
After filing the complaint, we left for the taxi-stand. When we left the airport building, we were immediately hit by a hot and humid wall. Even as it is the cool season now in Singapore,(temperatures between 22 and 28 Celsius), It gets quite humid when its raining. And wow, I’ve never seen such a rainfall before. It was pouring down like it was judgment-day. And from one second to the other, it stopped. Only to start again with the same intensity a few minutes later. This happened about 3 times on our 30 minute ride from the airport.
Now we unpacked the suitcase, had a something to eat and took a shower. I’m looking forward to my bed… 🙂
Written on Sunday, November 19th