BA Lounge, or Why I Love Business Class

I'm struck once again by how much I love business class. I'm spoiled forever now that I know what's out there.

I left Chennai at 4:30 this morning... well, left the hotel then. Goodbye forever, Kanchi Residency (and all of the assorted wonderful pleasures that go with it). I think I think that the $22 I paid per night was too much. Are clean sheets and a towel too much to ask for? At least breakfast was included. And A/C, without which my trip would have been much less pleasant.

Somehow I missed the business class lounge on the way through security, so I hung out and listened to my iPod for the 2 hours or so that I waited. The flight out of the gate before mine was to Colombo, which I think is in Sri Lanka. I've decided I want to go there. Whenever I'm on the plane and the little map showing the planes progress pops up, I see all of the cities that we're flying over and I want to go. Like Ankara, Turkey... I want to go there. It kills me that there are places in the world that I'll never get to visit.

The flight was good. I slept some and watched movies... also spent some time avoiding awkward eye contact with other passengers, since they were all old businessmen. I'm in the Heathrow BA Lounge now. Life is good.

I'm actively engaged in my usual internal conflict that happens when I come back to the US. One the one hand, I love the US and being home. On the other, I love being away and in places where I can't understand what people are saying. I love travel. And I especially love being the only American and/or white person in a place. I think that I would have been happy as a British explorer during Imperialism, except that they really sucked. As much as I love the US, my passport starts to get unhappy when I don't use it often. This year, my passport has been pretty satisfied; Morocco and India kept it that way. Next year maybe I'll visit Alex in Cairo while he's studying abroad. Possibly we can have that Johns' Cousin European Backpacking Trip of Awesomeness as well. I've decided that if I'm ever going to backpack around Europe, I should do it soon. It's weird when old people go backpacking.

I'll try and post my photos on Facebook before too long. Don't get too excited, because I really didn't take that many. In the fine line between cultural sensitivity and dumb tourist picture taking, I err on the side of never taking a picture. Not that that's a good thing.

Once final thought. I was really really blessed to not get sick or have problems while in India. Thank you Lord!