On May 8, I left Boston to visit my sister in South Africa. On May 11, I arrived at Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport. The airport was renamed in 2006 to honor Nelson Mandela’s long-time friend, law partner, and one-time secretary general and president of the ANC.
Normally the best that I can say about a flight is that it was unremarkable. These flights were really good. The minute I boarded the Lufthansa flight from Boston to Frankfurt, I was in Germany. The flight attendants greeted us with a <<guten abend,>> and those of us who can speak German were able to do so the entire flight. They had a vegetarian dinner option that you didn’t have to pre-order, and free wine with dinner (along with free cognac after). Of note in the in-flight magazine–LSG Sky Chefs has been doing tests in a hypobaric environment to determine how people experience taste differently on airplanes. Commercial planes are pressurized to the equivalent of 10,000 feet and only 15% humidity, and apparently that changes a person’s sense of taste. You can taste the difference–the LSG food that we ate was markedly better than the food on other flights.
We arrived in Frankfurt after a 3-hour volcano delay, which cut back my layover just enough that I chose not to explore the city before meeting the family and boarding my South African Airways flight to Jo’Burg. SAA was also far better than any US carrier, but not quite as good as Lufthansa. The cool thing that SAA does–when you board your international flight they give you a ziplock baggie with a travel toothbrush and paste, an eye mask, and a pair of clean socks. No bad breath or stinky feet on arrival! The best part of the SAA flight was my single-serving friend, a Canadian who was going to Botswana to volunteer in a local school there. We talked for hours about comparative racial justice in South Africa, Canada, and the US–much to the amusement of the folks sitting behind us.
After we arrived we caught a cab to Hatfield, a suburb of the capital, Tshwane (formerly known as Pretoria). After checking in, meeting my sister, and getting some Indian food, I promptly fell asleep at 4 in the afternoon. The next day, we would go to Legonyane (my sister’s village) and meet her host family!
Tags: airlines · single-serving friend · south africa · strange places and foreign planets · transport · vacation2 Comments
Oh, interesting, about taste. I had no idea that it mattered — did they say whether it was the altitude or the humidity that did it, or how they each affect your perception?
I think it was predominantly the altitude–I found a translation of the article that ran in the German media at this link. Apparently one taste salty and sugary flavors a lot less, but acid stays stable. So, for example, melon tastes mealy, but tomato juice tastes great. White wine tastes too acidic, but red wine can be very good.