Why I prefer not to fly with Aeroflot

This story really happened and it happened to a good friend of my father. I don't know the details, but here is the story as I heard it:

It was in the 90's and the friend of my father was flying with Aeroflot, which is a Russian airline, to a destination somewhere in Russia. In the middle of the flight they had to land unexpectedly whereupon the pilot announced through the loudspeakers: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are very sorry, but we run out of fuel and thus cannot fly any further".
The passengers decided to chip in to pay for the fuel; the tank was refilled and the plane could take off again.

I wonder, however, were the passengers really paying for fuel or for the pilots summer house on the Bahamas?

Christmas Spirit

Dear Readers (wherever you are, if you are),

For Christmas a Calvin and Hobbes strip:

With love,
Tash

Winter flights

Since I'm in the UK I might as well talk about the weather.
As you all probably know - it snowed. It snowed a lot, and then it snowed some more. The sight of London covered under a white blanket is absolutely delightful, but that of airports is rather dreadful.
I really don't like flying in winter. Whenever I go back home for Christmas there is always the possibility that I will have an airport Christmas. Last year was pretty close: during my stopover in Amsterdam, on my way from Seoul to Warsaw, so much snow started falling, that it looked as if the god's were having a pillow fight up in the skies and all their bed-clothing was just being torn apart.
While I was waiting for my connection volunteers and airport staff were arranging rows of army beds. A woman sitting next to me was repeating like a mantra: "I tell you, I tell you, we won't take off." I was so tired after the previous 11-hours flight that everything seemed very far away, unreal, like someone else's dream. Nevertheless, after a long wait, we finally boarded, got de-iced, and took off.
Once I got home, where everything smelled like cookies and bigos [a traditional polish cabbage dish, which my father does every Christmas], and I sat with my parents in our winter-garden, I could finally marvel at the beauty of this white, silent cover that spread over the world.

British humor

A conversation I had today with a British gentleman:

British Gentleman: Where are you from?

Me: Poland

BG: Is anybody left there?



* A short note for those, who are not familiar with some of European prejudices: after joining the EU many Poles migrated to England (and other EU member countries) in search for work, and many Europeans were worried that cheap Polish labor would steal their jobs.

London state of mind

So here is a confession I have to make: I think I have a little crush on London. It's not this crazy passionate love that I have for Seoul, but I feel that London and I have many more good moments ahead and, who knows, maybe one day we will become something more? It's just so full of beautiful people and buildings and art galleries and good house music and red buses and beautiful accents and and and... and it's time to visit again!
After a short stopover in Cambridge I'll arrive in London on Friday afternoon and I am soooo looking forward to that. That city is full of surprises. The last time I was visiting I bumped into two Korean friends - and I didn't even know they were in Europe! I went to St. Pauls for some sight-seeing and I saw them there, standing and absorbing that mystic atmosphere of old churches. I couldn't believe my eyes, so I kept staring for a few minutes before I decided to go over and say hi.

Tomorrow 7pm (GMT+1) I'm taking off! London, surprise me!!

The beauty ideal

One summer day in Korea I bumped into a friend that I haven't seen for several months. She was wearing black shorts and a black tang-top. I was so stunned by how good she looked, that I couldn't turn my eyes away. I remember making a mental note to buy such black shorts asap.
She must have noticed my staring, because she said: " Don't look at me like that, I know, I need to go on a diet... I was in the US for the past two months, and I got this damn tan and gained weight..."*  And then I realized! It was not the black shorts! That girl had finally some legs, and breasts, and a bottom! And the color of her skin, my goodness, what a pretty brown it was! She looked so unlike most Korean girls with their sickly pale complexions and bodies without any curves.
Of course my friend went on a diet, and she started using some whitening creme (yes, they sell whitening facial cremes in Asia). I haven's seen her since that one day in summer, yet I believe that by now she looks again just like any other Korean girl - thin, flat, shape- and colorless. But that's just my subjective view on beauty, as far as I know most Koreans are very much in love with the anorectic type.


* most Koreans talk openly about looks and weight