Fledgling Airplane Manners

Happy St. Patricks Day.  My younger daughter told me I had better wear green.   I told her there was no need as I had green eyes and feted Ireland every time I blinked.  Unwittingly I had thrown a green shirt on today.  But parades and green Guiness aren’t on my mind just now.  Rather I’m flying over Russia somewhere en route to Zurich.  

I have never been to Switzerland and unfortunately I wont get to see much more than the airport.  We’ll be changing planes and making our way on to Venice.  Tomorrow is twenty years to the day since my wife and I were married.  Something grand was in order. 

The plane not surprisingly for a flight from Beijing, is full of Chinese people. Here back in row forty-two it would appear that there are a great number of Chinese septuagenarians off for a look at Europe.  Couldn’t tell you where there final destination will be.  My wife’s a bit annoyed by all the chatter and milling about and fledgling airplane manners.  But no one can talk on their cell phone at twenty thousand feet and somehow I’m happy for them all.  This is still only the earliest of days of the rising flood waters of Chinese international tourism.

Henry James Novella “The Aspern Papers” is set in Venice.  Then it was loud, brash Americans who set out to discover Europe and disrupted things with their easy money and sharp elbows and inattention to detail.  I liked the figure of Madame Bordereau as old as the Doge Donaldo, whose eyes flash out finally, unveiled, displaying their muse-like poignancy.  “Ah. You publishing scoundrel!”  I must bring that quote to the attention of my sister and my father who are guildsmen in the trade.  The narrator never deserved to secure these papers.  He feels very familiar throughout.  A real countryman of mine, certainly.

We’ll be having our Swiss Air dinner now.  The carts have just gone by.  Switzerland is always fabled to be one part French, one part Italian and one part German.  The breakfast was representative of the weak-leg of the culinary stool, with lots of cold cuts and, of course, Swiss cheese.  I’m hoping we veer towards the Mediterranean on this second pass through.  

Friday, 03/17/17