For those labouring under the impression that Switzerland is pretty, may I present the view from my room.
Prosecution rests.
The problem with the current batch of adventures is that my fear of flying is getting progressively worse with each flight. God knows what I'll be like on the plane to Whistler in December.
I blame myself. I'd always been a bit of a nervous flier and decided that my fear was silly and needed to be conquered. My solution was to devour air-crash investigation documentation. A little ghoulish, but I figured the best way to deal with such silliness is by learning all about it.
It worked too. It also stopped anyone wanting to sit next to me in the departure lounge as I whipped out my CAA folder and started reading about the causes of crashes involving the brand of plane in which I was about to fly.
Unfortunately the effect was shortlived. It began to unravel a few years back when I was sitting next to a very nervous flier and reassuring her that all the odd bangs and squeaks were normal.
(Bang!)
She: "What's that!!?"
Me: "The landing gear retracting"
(Whirrrrr... pop... pop...whirrrrrr)
She: "And that? What about that?? The engines are slowing!"
Me: "Yes, thats normal. We're flying low over a residential area. Don't worry, this particular aircraft could stay in the air on a quarter of the thrust of just one engine"
Except at the back of my mind a little voice piped up "No, that bang might not have been the gear. It might have a premature air-brake deployment, like on that Korean plane. In a matter of seconds, in the words of the CAA, the plane will 'cease to have the characteristics of an aircraft'"
So now I do the white knuckle thing with the best of them.
Today's flight was not helped by the fact that a chunk of the wing looked like it had been patched with the stuff I used to fill in the rust holes on my first car. Swiss Air have clearly fallen on hard times. Nice stewardesses though, and a welcome change from the bulldogs that snarled up and down EasyJet's aisle.
I'm going to hit the bar now and hit my expense account even harder. Drunken update later...
(Incidentally, it appears that my journal has now been blocked by my little red vodafone card as 'adult content'. I feel somehow proud of this fact.)
