Flight reviews

What else would I do on a transatlantic flight besides review every aspect of my in-flight experience?

The airline: French Bee

My seat: economy, aisle

My neighbors:

I sat on the aisle seat next to a young French couple. The man was next to me and his partner at the window. From 10 hours of assessing their behavior, I grew to assume they might be returning to France after a honeymoon in the states. They had rings on their left hands and I’m pretty sure they joined the mile high club, so that rang the honeymooners bell in my mind. But hey, that’s just one girl’s opinion. These two were all over each other during the flight and I honestly considered finding the emergency exit door and just walking to France to avoid their canoodling. Kidding, but it was definitely not the in-flight entertainment I was hoping for.

Film: In the Heights

I remember ages ago when In the Heights came out and I was dying to see it, but never got around to it. I didn’t know anything about the movie besides that it was a musical, so this was a blind watch for me.

I didn’t expect how much of a Hamilton vibe there would be in this movie, but it does make sense because of the actor cross overs. I also didn’t expect there to be 90% singing and 10% talking. I love a musical, but I think that I prefer my ratio to be a bit more 60-40.

At first, I wished I spoke Spanish so that I could have understood more of the dialogue between the characters (no subtitles), but then I decided that it was a nice touch. It felt realistic for the moments that I’ve spent in multilingual environments where the people around me switch in and out of different languages. Even without understanding what was said, you can get a feeling for the sentiments they’re expressing to one another.

Overall, this movie was very long and I took a 3 hour nap in the middle, but I loved the energy and the message of the film. It would have been a good one for the theaters, but my tiny plane screen did just fine for now.

Meal:

Sweet and sour chicken:

an unexpected character in my flight to France, but not an unwelcome one. It was as basic as sweet and sour chicken goes with some rice on the side. I did appreciate the unexpectedness of this dish, though.

Penne pasta:

they gave me like seven noodles with one piece of tomato! I expected it to be warm but then realized it was more of a pasta salad vibe? It wasn’t great, but you can’t really mess up the meal with only seven noodles.

Vanilla cake:

HELOOOOOO vanilla cake!! At first I thought this was going to be olive bread , but then I was pleasantly surprised with my first bite to see that it was actually a vanilla cake with little chocolate chips.

Bread:

clearly we’re not in France yet because this bread was nothing to write home about (and yet, here I am writing home about it).

Wine:

I ordered some red wine for 6€ and it came in a long tube as if it held the potion that would either put me to death, allow me to shape-shift, or something else that requires a vile of potion. All 10cl of it was poured into a tiny paper cup and enjoyed thoroughly (and quickly).

Film 2:

Bad Teacher

I saw this movie for the first time when I was definitely too young to understand a lot of the tom foolery going on in this movie. I enjoy the star studded cast and MOST of the humor, so this was a solid watch for the plane.

I love the romance between Jason  Seagel and Cameron Diaz throughout the movie. She’s definitely playing hard to get at first while she’s attempting to rizz up Justin Timberlake, but Jason does not back down. She doesn’t put up any sort of charade for him (a classic, “you see the real me and like me anyways” trope) and eventually comes to her senses after drunk driving, treason, identity theft, and academic dishonesty.

A plot theme in movies that stresses me out is when the main character lies about something throughout the whole movie and it just snow balls and snow balls until everything comes back to them and there’s a sad montage. However in this film, rather than having everything blow up in the main characters face, the main character decides not to cower in the face of accountability and hold on to corruption for just a little while longer.

Honestly, I just was rooting for the love interest the whole time and waiting for the moment that it all came together.

All in all I enjoyed the comedic ending to my 10 hour flight.