Sunday, 30 July, Rockville to Moscow in the belly of the behemoth!
Written 31 July 2017
Carolyn showed up punctually, and the time cushion we had built in because of the perennial traffic problems getting to Dulles came in handy. We got there about 3 p.m. as planned. Check-in and security also went smoothly (although none of us got TSA Pre-check, which was a nuisance), with the result that we had almost two hours to wait at the gate before we could board. Ev and I worked on a crossword puzzle together (an enthusiasm Ev has only recently discovered, thanks to new son-in-law Jeff), and David waited serenely, enjoying the calm before the storm, but that wait was really hard on Rachel. She's so excited about this trip she couldn't sit still, but a package of Starburst and an ice cream kept her occupied enough to get through it.
The exciting part for the rest of us, though, started when the plane that pulled up to our jetway (two jetways, actually) was the new Airbus 380! It was, as a certain president might put it, HUUUGE! A few years ago, David and I were at CDG in Paris and watched as a mock-up of part of its fusilage was used to adjust the fit of the new, oversized jetways that had to be built for it. We were on the "main deck," in row 25, but a couple walked past our seats on their way to row 50! And there's another whole deck, almost as large, above ours! The fusilage has two full rows of windows running its length. The service crew was about 25 people!
The diameter of the fusilage is so large that the gap between the window seats and the bulkhead is big enough to stow carry-on bags in (although they wouldn't let you actually do that). The overhead bins are a good foot farther above the floor than usual and were amazingly capacious. We encountered no shortage of space. Best of all, because I prefer an aisle seat and David a window seat, even if it means leaving a seat in between that might be occupied by a stranger, we had an empty seat between us that no one else selected. And of course all Air France equipment is more comfortable than Delta's— I love the adjustable foot rests. The shorter flight time from Dulles (than from Atlanta), the 380's slightly larger seats, and the extra room provided by the fortuitously empty seat made all the difference—it was the least uncomfortable Atlantic crossing I'd had in years.
The short flight (only ca. 6 hours) interrupted by two meal services seemed almost too brief to make sleeping practical. I watched two movies: Kong: Skull Island (Tom Hiddleston as action hero? It seemed an odd idea, but he'd spent some time in the gym and turned out to be pretty good at it.) and the new live-action version of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The latter was not as good as the cartoon version. For starters, they began the movie too early, before the prince got enchanted into a beast, so you knew what he looked like before the transformation (I ask you, did Agatha Christie start by announcing that the butler did it?!). Then they made Lefou gay, completely missing the points that the cartoon version was making about human nature. Finally, although some of the new songs were very good, the big production numbers from the old version, like Be Our Guest and Tale as Old as Time just didn't measure up.
I did manage to sleep a little after that (being able to turn sideways helped enormously), but then it was breakfast time—the usual yogurt, chilled muffin, and orange juice.