The Colours of First Class

by Martha Edwards on

It’s almost physically painful for me to look at pictures of the fabulous first-class amenities that many long-haul airlines offer. Picture me on my last long flight from New Zealand, spending 12 hours trying to sleep in an upright position with the elbow of a 300-lb Maori man next to me (I feel more sorry for him than myself — he could barely squeeze into the seat.) Seriously — how great would be to kick back on a cross-Pacific flight in this kind of setting?

From a design perspective, first class is even more spectacular. I’ve never really considered it before, but the color and decor on a plane can have a lot to do with your overall experience, don’t you think? You want your plane to looks bold without being too overpowering; contemporary and sleek without being uncomfortable. Methinks drab shades of grey and brown will make the passengers feel drab, bored, maybe ever trapped. That said, if I had a choice between bright colours in coach and drab ones with a chair that folded into a bed and my own private nook with a TV, I could most definitely deal with drab.

Does this mean you should pick an airline based on the colour? I guess if you’re flying first class, you can afford to.

Filling Time on a Boring Drive: Road Trip Games

by Martha Edwards on

I spent the last 5 days driving across the Canadian prairies with my friend Sarah. We drove about 2800 km in total (about 1740 miles for you non-metrics), entertained only by a few CDs randomly chucked into the car in haste, one gossip magazine and about 50 country music stations per town. Oh, and a few road trip games made up for such purposes, such as:

Cows: My friend Alissa taught me this. Whenever you pass a field of cows, you yell cows and quickly count the number of cows in the field, to a maximum of 17.You can then bank that number of cows and at the end of the trip, the person with the most cows wins. The catch is cemeteries. If one of your opponents sees a cemetery, they can get rid of all of your cows by yelling cemetery! It’s pretty thrilling when you’re surrounded by pretty much nothing but cows. Though don’t play it on a bus — people will think you’re strange for being so happy to see a cemetery.

License plate: The object of this game is to make the best word or phrase out of the letters on a license plate. For example, a plate that reads JXT 986 could be Juxtaposition 983! (with exclamation mark because you must yell it out.) Or UKJ 123 could be Ukulele Jingle or Yukon Jack 123! The judging part can be a bit tricky, but I guess there are no real winners — it’s about bringing creativity to the car.

Cars: Each person picks a color. Say you pick Blue and your opponent picks white. You count the blue cars that you see, and your opponent counts the white cars. Whoever gets to, say, 15 first wins. Yay!

You know, when you write them down, they sound pretty dull. Here’s a list of some more interesting games that I will bring next time I spend so much time in the car.