After leaving the British Airways lounge we made our way to our gate. It was a madhouse, and we had a long wait to board the plane. We kept hearing announcements that the plane would load. “promptly in 15 minutes”. The gentleman in the middle of the picture was the road warrior, who was off for a month with only one carry on bag!
On our way to our gate, I saw this ahead of me. My darling daughter’s boyfriend loves soccer players, and I was quite excited that it appeared a number of soccer players were praying before they boarded our flight. My husband had a good laugh when I realized that it was a mural!
Steve was in seat 2K, I was in seat 3K. We normally like to sit next to each other and hold hands, but I wanted to look out the window, and see if I could take a few pictures. We have worked it out so that if we don’t sit side by side we hold hands over the head rests. Qatar has lots of leg room, and lie flat seats which are really great when you have a 12 hour flight ahead of you! Plus, its only three class, so I don’t feel bad, that I am not paying even more obscene amounts of money. One of these days I’m going to be able to figure out how to use miles and get a seat in the super first class sections and get the Residence or Apartment on the other Middle Eastern carriers.
JFK had just opened for business again that morning. There were several people on our flight who had been waiting since Wednesday night to fly out. They were not happy. You can see all the snow, that was there. The gusts were blowing and we heard that the winds were going to pick up even more later in the day. It looks like a face off between that plane and ours, he was just waiting to get in line behind us. Manhattan sky line is seen in the distance in the third picture.
The amenity kits that we were given had the usual stuff in it, eyeshades, socks, ear plugs, etc. We also were given pajamas. I took a pack, Steve didn’t. I am never one to not take free stuff. I don’t know how many little amenity kits I have at the house, it drives Steve crazy. I didn’t end up keeping the pj’s on the end of the flight ad they had too much polyester to be really comfortable.
Good bye NYC, and we are off to Doha, Qatar. The flight was set to leave at 9:45 am, it didn’t leave until 10:45, due to our late loading.
The plan was to watch a little television, and have a dinner, and then sleep as much as we could. The flight was to land in Doha at a local time of 6 am. Due to my blood clot from our trip to South America last January I need to take a daily blood thinner. I usually take it in the evening with dinner, but with the time change we weren’t sure when the proper time to take it would be. We decided that I would take it at breakfast until we get back home. As the time change is about ten hours, we thought that would work out well.
I started with the Pavarotti movie, then Diana. Diana was a two parter, unfortunately the airline only showed part 1!. Ballyfin was next (It’s now a hotel in Ireland with only 8 rooms, so that is on my list to visit!). Victoria and Abdul would be watched after I slept.
Dinner was great. After our hot towels we got nuts (not warm, like some of the other airlines). Then Brushetta with cheese and caviar, a wonderful pea soup, salad, then fish and finally freezing cold ice cream.
After a nice nap, I had breakfast with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and more caviar. I was scared of fish eggs at first, but they are really delicious, salty and then a fun pop in the mouth.
The flight staff was wonderfully attentive, in between serving all the passengers they changed their clothes three time. Different jackets on and off for differing parts of the flight!
Off to my anti jet lag massage, and will post about Doha airport later.
