As warned in the previous post, the next time I would write something more could be during flight! Indeed I originally wrote this on a small note book, and later transferred it in Madrid to my notebook, or laptop ;)
But forget that I am now typing in Barajas airport, and read on as if still in Lisbon, inside the airplane!
16F is my seat in the airplane. "F" meaning "Fabulous views" or "stibord window seat". Outside you can see the KLM flight for which the loudspeakers at the airport were insistingly calling for the two Portuguese-named passengers (Filipe and Sebo) destined to Frankfurt. It is one of those sights that you tend to imagine you only see in Portugal: The KLM plane was moving backwards, away from the gate and, in doing, so causing a traffic jam, of two small luggage carriers, one bus, two vans, and a larger luggage truck.. There were no traffic lights, and the road vehicles were coming from the right, and an airplane was moving backwards! The situation looks a bit more comic at 7:00 am when you have slept very little...
.. Any way, soon it was our turn to cause traffic jams and take off.
The silhouette of clouds in the distance begin glowing a metallic hot tone, that very slowly spreads to neighboring cloud tops. This goes on until the bright shine becomes uncomfortable, just seconds before a confident reddish shine clearly denounces the sun!
In flight, the sun rises at 7:32.. Just 5 minutes later, breakfast arrives as we cross the border into Spain.
The tops of clouds below the aircraft receive the first direct sun light only at 7:42!
I don't understand why people would say bad things about TAP airplane food.. I got a ham sandwich overcrowded with cheese, accompanied by Tea/Coffee, orange/apple juice and strawberry yogurt! All this takes 10 minutes to eat. And at 7:51 we were already starting our descent to Madrid airport. The flight from Lisbon to Madrid is a restaurant! You seat, you eat, and you leave.. Of course, I had to pay almost 100 euros for such a luxurious breakfast with fascinating views through a non-luxuriously dirtied window..
But it strikes curiosity in imagining that we are already descending to Madrid when the sun has not yet risen in Lisbon.
Here, near Toledo, you can see the fields lit by shallow warm sunlight, with some occasional specular reflections from some house roofs.. Solar panels, perhaps? We are descending at 2 meters per second, estimating from the screens..
Oh well... Spaniards are strange people, with a strange landscape.. Now you can see white sand, and roads also in a whitish tone.. What a strange sight! Why would you they build roads in such a colour?.. Would it be under construction still? But then everything starts turning white.. Some trees now get white too!.. What?!?
IT'S SNOW!!! It snowed near Madrid!! Now I understand why I saw a river that was white before a small dam, and watery in aspect after it! It makes sense with the temperature outside the airplane of -13º (3º at Madrid, as our female commander announced)
What a spectacular sight! SNOW!!! Snow!! snow!... What a joy!
As the plane moves, the ground now becomes less snowy, interpolating itself back into the normal vegetationish look.. Trees become darker, followed by snow and ice turning into dew, and then into a clean washed look, and then to dry areas..
What an unforgettable trip this is starting to be
No comments:
Post a Comment