Flying curiosities

On the flight from Madison to Chicago somebody in the front seat was explaining the route to the stewardess—how it would be so much faster if they could use a south-bound runway and land from the north at O’Hare rather than circling round. Either the stewardess was new to the route or very kind…

My seatmate from Chicago to Brussels was a man who works localizing Microsoft products for Caribbean and South American customers. There’s more to it than the language: the idioms and emblems and pictures differ. He said that on one Caribbean island the translation in the Bible for “will be white as snow” was “will be white as coconut milk.” They’ve heard of, but never seen snow. Because of the huge number of Hispanics in the USA (speaking a more generic form of Spanish than their native countries do), Microsoft will be coming out with a US-Spanish version too. (I hadn’t realized there were more Puerto Ricans on the continent than on the island!)

A tipsy lady who apparently knew him from somewhere came to talk with him for an hour. She never spilled a drop of wine despite her sweeping gestures—I was under her and I‘d have noticed. He made sure the conversation stayed on the topics of food (he hates food from “stupid animals” like chicken and tilapia).

She noticed that one of the boys behind us was playing with a plastic bag over his face, and corrected him. After she left he took up a different hobby—drumming on the back of the chair in front of him (mine).

The Brussels airport was its usual mixture of exotic, flashy, and ugly. I guess Manchester is unpopular: people waited until the last minute and beyond before approaching the gate for the flight there. The first call for boarding brought only 3 customers—and one kept sitting across from us for another 15 minutes (“waiting for friends” he said).

Near one gate were 4 from an Indian family (they looked similar), all in wheelchairs. There were no other Indians around. The eldest looked frail, two others were late middle aged and possibly ill, but the youngest was a peppy looking lady. I suspect somebody is gaming the system in order to board first.

On the Geneva leg I was startled by the appearance of a trim older woman with bright blond hair, bottle-tanned face, botox-smooth cheeks—and the rest of her face looking like that of a shrunken head. I never saw her smile.

The Geneva immigrations officers have started stamping American passports and asking where you came from. Is somebody unhappy about the US suit against UBS? (I still don’t quite see how we have standing to sue…)

I arrived OK, and coherent enough to cover all the bases in my talk. By the time I and Jim spoke, several EMU scientists were fast asleep in their chairs. My presentation wasn’t dramatic enough to rouse them.

Tomorrow morning I’ll oversleep as usual, but I succeeded in staying up until 10 so “now I lay me down to sleep.”