This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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A nice man came to my hotel at 1.30pm to take me to the airport in his shiny black car. He was a very friendly man and gave me a bottle of water as I was very sweaty because it was warm in San Francisco. When he dropped me off at the airport I went to a special checking in area for people flying in Virgin's Upper Class cabin, even though I'd used the interwebnet to do the checking in earlier.
I was actually taken care of by a man on an economy check-in desk, because he could see that I was waiting and so he made the economy passengers wait instead. I was very happy that he did that because it made me feel special. He gave me a card to invite me to the Virgin Clubhouse, which in San Francisco is one of the best Clubhouses and I like it very much.
When I got there a lady said hello and asked me if I would like to use Virgin's special lounge for passengers arriving in London's Heathrow Airport. I said that I would, because I knew that when I got back to London I was going to spend the day dealing with evil estate agents and lawyers while I tried to complete selling a flat and buying a lovely new house, so the idea of at least having a shower and feeling like a human being before I had to do that seemed like a very good one indeed.
When I got into the Clubhouse I sat in one of the lovely comfy swivel chairs that have a good view of the planes on the airfield. A man offered me a drink, and even though I've always been told not to take things from strange men I asked him for a glass of grape juice called Sauvignon Blanc, and he brought it and it was jolly nice. I looked at the list of things to eat, as I hadn't had anything to eat so far today and was very hungry, but my favourite club Sandwich had been taken off the list and so I had to have a pepperoni pizza instead. It was v nice and there was salad on the side which made me feel a bit less like a greedy porker.
An American man who is an architect and a golf player came and sat in the chair opposite me. I knew that he was an architect and a golf player because he spent the next hour and a half telling me all about his architecture and his golf. He had never flown on Virgin Atlantic before, and he asked me some questions about the service. He sounded very interested in the in-flight beauty lady, and so I gave him one of my Priority Cards so that he could definitely have a treatment from her. This made me feel like a very nice person. I had more grape juice while he was talking about architecture and golf in the hope that it would somehow make it all less painful.
Because I was so hungry I ordered a cheese plate and when it came I offered some of it to my new achitecting, golfing friend in the hope that while he was eating it he would stop talking for just a few. precious. seconds. about architecture and golf. But he just talked with his mouth full, which made him both boring *and* not pretty.
After a while the Virgin people told us to go and get on the plane and so we did. Even though San Francisco have stopped having priority lanes for Upper Class passengers, the security search was very quick and we reached the gate very quickly. For the first time ever out of all my trips to San Francisco the Virgin plane was on gate 6 not gate 8, which confused me. But once I went through the gate I was very soon on board and the golfing architect went upstairs so I could finally stop hearing about golf and architecture, and went to my seat, which was 17K and the seat that I'd given to Dave on the flight out so he would have a window.
When I got to the seat there was a package of nice things and a menu waiting for me. The Virgin lady who was in my part of the plane *forced* me to have some sparkling grape juice, and I got comfortable. We were later getting on board the plane than planned, and so we were late taking off, but not as late as when we came to San Francisco on Monday. We left the gate about 35 minutes later than we were supposed to. The lady in charge of the crew said that the flight would take nine hours and forty five minutes, and that there were three hundred and eighty nine passengers on board.
Once we'd taken off ('citin'!), the V:Port system was turned on and the crew came and gave us pyjamas if we wanted them. I said yes please and went to change into the top half of them so I could go to sleep and not mess up my nice shirt. I was also offered a drink and crisps (yum) or olives (blech!), and started work on my homework assignment, which is this report.
While I was writing, the lady in charge of the crew came and said hello, which was nice, but felt a bit of a token gesture type thing as she barely even bent down in passing. I suppose she was very busy as the Upper Class cabin was full and she only had nine hours and forty five minutes to get round everyone.
When the lady came to ask me what I'd like to eat I had a choice of all of these things:
Starters;
Traditional Italian salad, or
Goats Cheese and Sun-Dried Tomato Tartlet
Main courses;
Saut_ed Chicken Breast With White Bean Ragout And Vegetables, or
Flat Iron Steak With Merlot Pepper Butter, Cheddar Mash and Vegetables, or
Roasted Vegetables With Saffron Couscous And Pita Bread
Cheeses;
Gorgonzola
Camembert
Black Diamond Cheddar
Desserts;
Molten Chocolate Pudding With Raspberry Coulis
Vanilla Ice Cream With Chocolate Sauce and Pirouline Wafer
Apparently, if I wanted to, I could have any of them at any time I wanted, and I could also have what they called Smaller Bites whenever I wanted, which were:
Italian Ciabatta With Prosciutto, Salami And Mozzarella,
Hot Crumbed Fontina Cheese, Tomato and Basil Served with Tomato Sauce, or
Chicken And Beef Skewers With Asian Style Salad And Sweet Chilli Sauce
I asked for the Tartlet and the Steak (I did say I was *very* hungry). I was also able to tell them what I wanted for my breakfast so that it would be waiting for me when I was woken up, which as always seemed like a jolly good idea to me. I was also happy to see, when I looked at the menu of things I could have, that the special red grape juice from Spain that I'd enjoyed (a *lot*) on the flight on Monday was available today too.
Like a real silly billy I'd forgotten to charge up my iPod music player before I got on board so I couldn't listen to the music I'd selected for the journey, and I found I couldn't settle to watch any of the loads and loads of things that the plane's entertainment system offered, so I decided to read my book for a while at the bar. I chatted to one of the Virgin people while I was there and he was very friendly and gave me more grape juice to help me sleep.
When I went back to my seat I decided to try and get some sleep, and went to change into my pyjama bottoms.
When I got back, MY SEAT HAD TURNED INTO A BED!!!!!!! Magic!
I laid down and managed to stay sort of asleep for about five hours, which is pretty much a record for me, because usually I can't really sleep at all on aeroplanes.
I was woken up by the nice lady at breakfast time and she brought my cereal and bacon sandwich, with tea and apple juice. Num num.
There was about an hour of the flight to go once I'd finished my breakfast, so I settled back down with my book until we landed about an hour late at London's Heathrow Airport where it was RAINING :-(
I got off the plane and walked to the Immigration room, where I went straight up to one of the eye scanning machines where there was no queue and so I was the first person waiting for my suitcase at the conveyor belt. I don't think they'd got the bag loading right though, because the bags that were supposed to come off the plane first (like mine) didn't, and I had to wait for quite a few other bags to arrive before mine did.
Then I went to see the nice people in the Revivals lounge where I had a lovely shower and began to feel human again. Some more tea and apple juice helped that a lot too, and then I went off to bang estate agents' and solicitors' heads together so I can have my lovely new house.
And that is the end of my trip report.
(Sorry, it was a long, jet-lagged, and largely sleep-free week and I was feeling slightly hysterical by the time I started this.)
