Turn Left

I did get to turn left when I got on the plane.

When I contacted the airline to confirm the upgrade on the Sunday evening, they said they'd sort it out, but they managed to delete it altogether! So I phoned them again and I got a window seat (2F) next to a nice young American lady. The seat did indeed go flat, but I didn't have it like that much. The dinner was served not long after take-off, starting with warm roasted nuts and another drink, then bread rolls/garlic bread with a mixed salad with vinaigrette. Next came the appetizer, which was morel mushroom soup accommpanied by seafood-filled pastry and lamb kebab with chutney. For the main course, I chose the tenderloin of beef with marsala sauce, carrots, sugarsnap peas and potato au gratin (other choices were roasted Peruvian chicken; Seafood Stew; and Pasta Bowl). The cheese course was next, but it tasted odd so I didn't eat very much of the cheese - but they had some Cheddars biscuits. The dessert course was a very nice vanilla ice cream, with chocolate sauce. After that, coffee was served. I'm pleased I just sampled the free buffet at lounge, because I was considering having a proper dinner at one of the restaurants instead, but I'd never had managed everything on the plane if I had have done that. A couple of hours after dinner there was a wonderful baking smell wafting through the cabin, which turned out to be freshly baked cookies - they were very nice too.

I watched the 007 film (Tomorrow Never Dies) and played a couple of the games. As we chased the sun westwards, we had a magnificent sunset from deep red through yellow to light blue to dark blue.

We left the gate on time and then taxied around for half an hour but we arrived early, touching down just about 9.20pm local time. After a short taxi and a short walk, I was at immigration and despite having to do the procedure twice because the fingerprint scanner was dirty, that was very quick. My bag was one of the first out, with its bright orange "Priority" sticker. By 9.45pm I was through all the formalities and headed to the AirTrain station, and I was in my hotel room at 10.30pm on the dot, barely an hour after touching down.

It's warm here - it was reportedly over 90F (32C) earlier this evening, but had cooled down to 84F (29C) by the time I arrived.