kanamurva

Very interesting! Looking forward for the next chapters. I would be interested to know whether lounges played a big role in getting you hooked into this? Personally starting the trip from a lounge has been amazing.

DALtoAAL

Keep it coming! This is almost like watching the movie "Titanic": you know how it all ends but you just have to keep on watching it!

OH-LGG

I dont know how this ends.

Courmisch

If it's like serial novels or TV series, you can binge read the first 10 seasons that will already be done, and then you have to wait for one season per year...

emulator

intuition

Indeed. (The lyrics obsession will be explained in a later episode, but they are there to illustrate a point in the episode. Also for fun&games to see if readers are able to recognize my references - I have a rather large library!)

I need to stay clear of anyone wanting to play the
"That's me you are talking about - and I'm suing your 'perse' off for defamation!"-game

In the build-up phase (the years before becoming status holder) it was a huge part of the perceived motivation/goal. Once I was a frequent flyer, it quickly shifted to F-lounges only, especially since I learned how poor the no-status business class lounge often is. For awhile I'd say it was 90% of my draw to keeping platinum.
And yes, many times a few hours in a good lounge is a great trip-starter!

Miss K (Finnairplusrep) knows how to get hold of me if there is an interest, but I think they might be more into high profile "influencers" and social media shareable events, than classic novel / short story .
Also, I am going for a full disclosure, raw version here. Blue Wings might need a slightly more polished version.
But hey, didn't Blue Wings commission energizer-bunny Mr Stubb for awhile?
If commissioned, I'd be happy to provide a novel based serial suitable for (almost) all audiences.

intuition

Season 1
Second chapter - Wherein I learn to really appreciate champagne, wow to never fly economy again and finally becomes silver but is still rather annoyed with the program.
Well. I'm no bore, but to be honest the theme song isn't very fitting at this point in time. I do love to make grand plans though, and since I am very analytical by nature, I tend to spend more time making the plans rather than executing them...

Since mid-90's I had entertained an idea of going to Australia to visit my since-then emigrated sister. Not so much as a family reunion, but more so for shts and giggles - just to get a good story out of it. The plan was to ship my convertible car to Australia by boat and a few months later follow suite. And this because so many debbie-downers had asked me "Why buy a convertible in Sweden when you only can drive top down a few weeks a year?". So driving my car top down around sunny Australia during the Swedish winter ought to shut some critics up.
"-See? A convertible car can be used year round!"

And as you guessed, something always seemed to interfere with execution of the plan.

When the financial crisis hit in 2007/2008 and airline pricing began dropping, an annoying little voice in my head started nagging me to actually do something of my big plan. Riding Gothenburg tram no6 everyday, passing by this illustrious message over the entrance to the stamp cemetery might have assisted in moving closer to an actual action.

("Think about death")

In 2009 I was finally ready. The car was getting old I wasn't getting any younger either. Dropping the dead weight (the overseas car transport) made execution easier and my sister promised I could use her Eunos anyway. A car brand I've never heard of before or since, but it seemed rather sporty so I took her up on the offer.

Now focusing trip preparations on myself, I applied for 10 weeks of vacation and got me a ticket to Sydney. And with the great self-knowledge I had back then, I knew I would never ever do such a trip again and decided in true 'You-Only-Live-Once' fashion to get a business class ticket. €3 600 bought me one on Finnair, and that choice was mainly driven by the old Finnair-factor; Shortest total travel-time at affordable price.

The HKG-SYD leg was on CX and at some point I had seen and liked Cathay's herringbone cabin layout, so that might have been a contributing factor. The fact that I owned a Finnair plus membership card was a very minor influencer if any. I remember doing the calculations and realising I would make silver, which included HEL lounges back then, but not much more.
I was certainly not going to be a frequent flyer, but I had the cardboard card, why not collect the points anyway and see what I can use them for later?


Now, this wasn't supposed to be a trip report, but some flying related memories have interfered with the story line and will be covered next.
(Chapter 2 to be continued)

intuition

Season 1 - Second chapter (cont.)

Before boarding the GOT-HEL flight, I checked the Vantaa departure board online, only to find that AY69 was severely delayed. As the rookie I was, I didn't know this was pretty much standard for Finnair and the news made me very nervous. Arriving in HEL, I went to the lounge and asked what this meant for my connection. The lady looked at my onward boarding pass and just said
- Don't worry, they will take care of that once you are in the air.

I wasn't feeling reassured and after the long wait in the lounge it didn't get any better. And who are "they", by the way?!
The flight took off with "only" some hours delay and connection worries prevented me from really enjoying the flight.
As soon as we landed in HKG I overheard several other passengers in J cabin being on their way to SYD too and worrying about the same thing. Flight attendants had no info, and the group of approx. 10 pax (all as rookie as me) gathered on the jet-bridge trying to find out what to do.
Then the HKG-runner found us, showed a board with our names and flight-number on and shouted 'hurry hurry'! I had no idea what time it was but quickly understood that she was seriously going to get us on that plane.

Now 11 people are rapidly jogging through the airport, getting herded through a special line at transfer security and then herded to the gate where a second (and thorough) security screening was made on the jetbridge. We were all pushed onto the plane and doors closed moments later.

Only at this point, I realised there was something wrong with my seat. It was not 4-abreast herringbone seats. It was 6-abreast cocoon-seats. And that was because we were on a QF plane!
With the much anticipated seat snatched out of reach for me, I shamefully admit to getting some precursors to air-rage. Mildly put, I was the cranky guy on that flight.
Menus were handed out, and I found food and wine I wanted. Made my order, and was told "we were out of that wine, but we have a lovely Chardonnay".
Well, there were other interesting wines in the list and I quickly found something else I wanted. And she goes
- I am sorry. But the Chardonnay is really good!

With teeth pressed together and a look that not only could kill but also burn a whole in the hull, I replied steamingly
- I...DON'T...DRINK...CHARDONNAY!

Up 'til this point, the FA was nothing extra-ordinary. But here she quickly snapped into damage control mode. Weather she was a natural or QF trained her to handle DYKWIAs who think they are special because they once in their life bought a €3 600 ticket and won't stand to be delayed or forced to drink Chardonnay, I don't know. But she very quickly leaned in over my seat, lowered her voice and looked straight at me:
- I fully understand, sir!. Tell you what, later I'm going to sneak into first class and see if I can't nick a nice bottle for you!

So the fragile spirit of this rookie and DYKWIA flyer was now at least momentarily at ease. And just as she promised, mid service she returned with an open bottle of red, that had a good 3-4 glasses left in it. She poured me a glass of this incredible, kick-as wine and domesticated me in one sip. I still to this day I wonder why on earth I didn't ask for the lable, but I was like a happy puppy chewing his first bone, drifting off into la-la-land.

OK, enough of those flight memories, let's get down to the serious stuff!
(Chapter 2 to be continued, perhaps some life changing events ahead)

ffay005

I don't know if this is part of the spot-the-höpö but Silvers used to have access to many outstation lounges, too.

That cemetery sign is 5/5 ^

intuition

Ha, the original text actually said that, but I got doubts when publishing and altered to HEL! So höpö yes, but an un-intentional one!

intuition

Season 1 - chapter 2 ending

My sister lived in the funky Sydney suburb Newtown and had some interesting housemates. Living with other people as an adult is a rather unknown concept in Sweden so it was all very new to me. Meeting up in the living room during the evenings, drinking, chatting, playing board games.
One housemate was a rather attractive Briton/Swede expat. I noticed she was drinking champagne every night and one night when we went to the bottle shop to replenish, I asked why that was.
-Life is too short to drink bad wine, she replied.

While sounding like a cheap slogan, it turned out she suffered from a non-curable neurologic disease and thus had some real life facts to back up her claim with.
Before, I never fancied champagne much. It was more of a context drink (new year's, engagement party and so on) than something drunk on its own merits.
But her attitude to handle the curve ball life had thrown at her made a big impact on me. Not just a simple choice of learning to enjoy champagne but on a wider scale on how to live today and not postpone things or save yourself for later.

And I was about to get a second reminder of that life lesson. Some nights later she didn't turn up for our game night. Nor the day after. It turned out she had just started dating a, quite frankly, very odd guy. One of the room-mates asked her point blank what ever she saw in him. She came clean:
- I admit, we don't have anything in common, but the sex is earth-shattering!.

We all laughed and cheered and shouted "Good for you". But all I could think was - 'Damn, that could have been me!'.
If I only have gotten my fat behind out of the cradle, gotten here a year or a month earlier, I'd be doing what wild rabbits do all day. All while drinking champagne! Isn't that what life is supposed to be like? No plans, no lengthy decision making, no second guessing.


Yes, seriously, that was the feeling that took a firm grip of me. And I realised that this realisation (sic) had come to me because I was not in my normal environment Life does not just happen at home. There is a world out there where things happen every day, every second. Not necessarily differently than at home, but out of your normal context you might react differently, act differently, taking up other opportunities than normally.
Looking back, I would like to pinpoint this moment as when the seed was planted for my need to break out of the safe zone. To see the world and find out what was waiting for me there. Of course, after making a careful plan for it though!

Faster than I could've imagined, the 2 months passed, eating, drinking, meeting people, doing stuff, doing nothing, and soon I was leaving the sunny laid-back life in 40° C for dark, snowy -15°C Sweden. End of chapter 2.


Wait, what? Did you want to hear about the flying too? I told you, it is not a trip report!

The return went via BKK. As the novice flyer, I just followed others from the flight to a (the QF?) business class lounge. I was denied access, rather unfriendly. Getting a bit agitated and DYKWIA again, I go
- But but, I am flying business..
- Yes, said the lounge agent, you can go to the V-I-P lounge. Now, off you go!

Slightly confused as to why the VIP lounge would take me, I walked across the hallway to the First class lounge, where I, albeit less unfriendly was rejected too.
- But but, (getting more agitated) they told me to go to V-I-P lounge!
- Aha, replied the agent with that friendly Thai smile trying to help me save face. I think they meant the C-I-P lounge....

She gave me directions and off I went again. The double walk of shame, turned away from not one but two lounges, was crowned by the craptastic experience that the CIP-lounge proved to be. Even for a novice like me, it was easy to tell this wasn't luxury travelling. Stuffy, small, not much to eat or drink. I crawled up on a sofa in the corner and sulked a bit.
When the first wave of self-pity subsided, I looked around me. Men with beer bellies drinking grogg. Fair-haired ladies who had spent too much time in the sun for their complexion type. All around soft spoken conversions in Finnish. The second wave of self-pity rolled in as I realised my once-in-a-lifetime trip really was over.

Landed Monday morning 8-ish at GOT, took the airport bus to the city and went straight to the office. And yes, that was a carefully researched plan to best battle jet-lag. Still a planner I guess, but I also realised that flying J helps a lot with the jet lag and actually saves time. You can spend more time abroad because you don't need a weekend to reset your clock on. I decided that if I ever did such a trip again, it had to be in J for that reason.

The trip was supposed to get me silver, actually already after the SYD-BKK leg. The re-route on the outbound had to be retro-claimed by mailing boarding pass in original to Finland. And of course legs didn't post in order anyway and so I was not made silver until after the trip. Meaning I missed the silver tier multiplicator for the last two legs. I contacted Finnair and the rep basically replied "so what?" and I thought to myself; Well yeah up yours, cordially, and put the silver card in a drawer and almost forgot about flying and stupid frequent flyer programs..





the 2010 silver binder, back when silver actually meant something.

juhanh

More!

Regards from Camperdown (next sub north of Newtown).

FlyeBye

Great read, when is S01E03 scheduled to be aired?

intuition

Episodes will be as regular as AY69


(The synopsis for entire season is since long ready but there is still a bit more writing and polishing to do and it might be a few days before I strike GOLD)

emulator