So I am really happy that I have safely landed in Moscow! Whew. I have been a little - hmm, what's the right word ....concerned? - about flying on Aeroflot ever since a very well traveled man I met asked me which airline I was flying. I said Aeroflot and his response was like a gasp, wide eyes and an open mouth. That's really not what you wanna see, you know? So then I did some research, listened to him and just got myself generally freaked out thinking that there would be some kind of punishment for scouring the Internet for the cheapest ticket I could find - which happened to be on Aeroflot.
Anyway, moving on from that, I have to say that the plane ride certainly exceeded my (well, rock bottom) expectations. I forgot how fun it is to fly on a new airline where everything is in a different language and you get a little exposure to another culture. I like looking at the flight attendants' outfits and getting free boxed red wine as my beverage of choice. Overall, it was a fine time.
However, what really made the flight a lot better were the endless options of movies to watch!! Since I hadn't been thinking about the positives of this whole flight thing, I didn't contemplate how the advancements made in technology since I last took an international flight, could seriously impact my flying pleasure. I watched all of The Godfather and loved every single minute of it. Ah, such a good movie. Here's Santino:
I put on Godfather II but I quickly fell asleep and it was finishing when I woke up. I also watched a little of "The Guardians," that cartoon movie with Santa, the Sandman, Easter Bunny and Jack Frost. I don't know.
Besides all the movies and the 3D map where you could turn the globe around on the touchscreen, there was also a CAMERA you could get on your screen to see out the front of the plane. Oh wow. For someone (newly) afraid of flying, this is kind of nerve-wrenching. At the same time, this feature is so cool, how could you NOT watch!? To mediate these two sides, I wound up not putting the camera on my screen but watching the take off over the shoulder of the girl in front of me. It was like watching as a roller coaster goes creaking up before a huge drop. At least that was what I imagined. All was safe and I felt immediately pretty relieved once the take off was successful.
The man traveling next to me was off to the Ukraine from Moscow. It turns out that he is doing a mission trip spreading the word of the Gospel to people in the Ukraine. I asked how he was finding the people and he said they (he and his church group) are just going to take to random people on the street!! He said that they actually find it very successful, much more than it would be in New York. The groups chose the Ukraine because of the absence of spirituality after the Cold War and how there may be that void now and perhaps a hunger for something more. I found that pretty interesting.
So now I have like six more hours left in the airport here before my flight to Hanoi and then before getting another flight there to Luang Prabang. It's like 5:30 a.m. New York time, which is fine, but I'm really tired. Hopefully I can find a place to sleep here! I'll let you know!!
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