On a recent Lufthansa flight (FRA to JFK), I sat next to a young, slender Polish girl who was coming to America as a high school exchange student. She spoke very little English, and I, being a retired English teacher, couldn't resist helping her get started with our language. What fun we had, and how time flew. I will always remember telling her about Americans being BIG, which she knew, and how, when she returned to Poland a year hence, she too would be BIG. My, how we laughed.<BR><BR>An interesting seatmate can make a plane fly faster.<BR><BR>Do you recall any such seatmates?<BR><BR>Gerry K<BR><BR>

On a trip alone from California to London I sat next to couple from Australia who were headed for a glorious world tour. The woman and I talked the entire time which just zoomed by. Never even got a nap. They even invited me to visit them in Australia, giving me there address and phone number. Unfortunately I misplaced it and constantly think how wonderful it would be to have visited them.

I know a woman who struck up a converstaion with a young lady on a one hour flight. She is now her mother in law.

Returning from my first trip to Europe in 1966 at age 22,I spent 17 hours on Icelandic's prop jet seated between a nun on leave from missionary work in Africa and a 40 year old man who was an atheist! They argued goodhumoredly about religion all the way across the ocean! It was very entertaining to me.<BR><BR> This was during the airstrike, so I was travelling on standby and very glad to have gotten the last available seat that night.

I sat next to a prim and proper middle aged woman on a flight to London from San Francisco. In the middle of the flight the baby in the aisle next to us kept screaming, the proper lady next to me leaned over to the mother and said in a fairly loud voice, "put yer t-t in that child's mouth!" Colorful character she was.

On a trip from London to New York, I struck up a conversation with my seatmate. He was an engineer, well traveled, from the west coast. We , of course, began discussing home towns.Thinking he had never heard of my little out of the way home town (in upstate NY) It turned out he was the best man at my child's kindergarden teachers' wedding<BR>We knew the same people. It is a small world. Yes, It was a most enjoyable ride.

On a SEA-CPH flight a couple of years ago I sat next to a young Canadian fellow who had just signed for 3 years with a Swedish hockey team. He was from Saskatchewan and hadn't been overseas before, and was quite sweet and naive-sounding. My spouse and I asked about what sort of life he thought he would be living in Stockholm, and he described some of his contract terms - apartment with a view of the water, new Volvo, travel allowances to Canada, etc.; (he didn't mention the prospects for his social life, which were probably excellent on the blonde front.) He still had all his teeth, too. Probably in the NHL by now, unless he's smart. <BR><BR>My worst seatmate experience was an American oil worker (aisle) returning to the middle east, who got completely drunk on a long, long Pan Am flight and who spent the whole time flinging obscenities and racial slurs at the nice Arab guy sitting in the window seat. I was in the middle. The "hostesses" couldn't have cared less. Longest 10 hours of my life.

Several years ago, on a flight from St. Martin to Boston, I sat beside Richard Addrisi who, along with his brother, wrote the song "Never My Love". I remember that we somehow struck up a conversation about music and I mentioned that our son is a professional musician. After several minutes of talking about how tough the music business is, he then told me that he had written several hit songs and asked me if I remembered the Fifth Demension and the song "Never My Love". He then told me his name and the story of how he and is brother wrote the song. Others around heard us talking and it didn't take long before we were all singing the song! It was a memorable flight. On a different flight from Puerto Rico home, we sat across from Jose Feliciano. We didn't have a conversation, but it was still memorable.

from London to Seattle last year I sat by a man with a Jordean passport that was reading a book on espionage. How comforting.

On my recent flight from Zurich to Roma I sat next to a guy reading like a term paper on how to introduce bacteria into DNA, very comforting also.

On a recent flight to the Netherlands, I sat next to a Pakistani young man and two American men who worked for the INS. It was clear from the start that they were giving the Pakistani an escorted deport from the country. But they told me this silly story that did not mesh, as not to upset anyone sitting around us.

Hi<BR><BR>the seatmate who made me most envious was on a flight Madrid - Copenhagen.<BR><BR>She was a marine Biologist. Lived in Tenerife and worked as a Marine Biology consultant. She was on her way to Norway to do analysis for a Norwegian Fish farm. She had also worked in :<BR><BR>Thailand<BR>Australia<BR>Florida<BR>Calif ornia<BR>Most of the Carribean<BR>Maldives<BR>etc<BR>etc<BR><BR>She was also beautiful.<BR><BR>As a diver, and a healthy male, I was entranced.<BR><BR>Peter<BR>http://tlp.netfirms.com<BR>

<BR><BR>Sometime in the mid 80's, I was on a flight from Cairo and the Stew asked if it was alright if they moved a passenger from coach to business next to me. The passenger turned out to be a Nun, in her mid 70's, who had gone to Africa from Ireland when she was 16 and was now repatriating to "retire". It was only her second time to fly, and she could not believe how large and comfortable the 747 was. When the wine was served, she commented that it was her first glass of decent wine in over 30 years. The Stew overheard this and kept the wine flowing throughout the flight to Amsterdam.<BR><BR>We enjoyed several glasses of the wine together and had long conversations about her experiences in her 50 years in Africa, some of which made us laugh, and some made us cry. The three hours to Amsterdam seemed to fly by. We parted in a rush as we deplaned and went our separate ways. I was overnighting in Amsterdam to catch a flight to Houston the next day. I usually went into Amsterdam, but this time I stayed at the Hilton in the airport. At dinner that evening, I looked across the room and the Nun was being seated by herself. I knew she was using the KLM vouchers for her meal, and that that meal would be very basic, so I flagged a waiter and told him to send her a bottle of my favorite Bordeaux, and to allow her to order anything on the menu that she wanted. I am sure he thought I was flirting until he looked and saw the 70+ year old that I wanted the bottle delivered to. He did not know quite what to think then!<BR><BR>When the waiter delivered the wine, he pointed across the room to me and I waved at her. Her face lit up with recognition and she waved back. When I finished my meal and signed off on the bill, I told the waiter the short version of her story, and he too was touched.<BR><BR>I stopped by her table and she invited me to share the bottle. Not wanting to deprive her of the treat, I only had one glass as we talked another three hours. She was a lovely lady and it was clear that while she was happy to be going home (for the first time in 50 years) she was, at the same time, sad about leaving the world she had shared for so long. When we could talk no longer, we said our goodbyes for the last time. On my way out, I arranged for another bottle to be delivered to her room with a "thank you for sharing your evening" note from me. The manager said that he would not hear of my paying for the wine, and he would send it "on the house". I was truly impressed!<BR><BR>That was almost 25 years ago and I suppose she is gone now, but I think of her often and wonder at the personal sacrifice she endured for her faith. I am not very religious, but I say a little prayer for her from time to time and toast her every time I open a bottle of Bordeaux.<BR><BR>Rich<BR>

Rich - the above story is one of the nicest I've heard in a long time. Truly a reminder that it is not what we have , but what we have given away!

Rich, what a lovely, lovely story!!

Rich, that made me cry. What a wonderful story.

Wonderful story, Rich. Thanks for taking the time to share it. (There have to be others that we'd enjoy hearing.)<BR><BR>Gerry K

In the summer of 1998 I was taking a flight from london to New York and was seated to a very pretty exotic women who ended up being Saudi. We started talking and I was fascinated to know she was flying to the US to finish her PHD in computer engineering and she spoke 5 languages!!Before I met her I assumed all arab women were covered head to toe and were not educated. We talked until the plane reached and I was delighted to have had my mind opened to a new fascinating culture that I absolutely had no idea about. The best part is that we have stayed in touch via internet. Since then she has moved back to Saudi and is teaching in one of the univerisites there. Infact, we have gotten even closer after the 9/11 and I have become more poretective of her too becuase I know just for being from a certain country she will get blamed.

This might be a different interpretation of the word "memorable" because I recall the incident with some pain---nonetheless, it is memorable. <BR><BR>At the time, I was traveling alone in coach class. Boarding the plane in Munich, I found my seat in a jumbo jet in the middle of the middle row. As I was getting settled, a group of BIG, TALL young men arrived and took their seats all around me--both sides, front, and back. These guys were huge, and they simply didn't fit in the small coach sets. Still, they were there, and they had to make the best of their cramped seating.<BR><BR>Striking up a conversation with one of them, I found they were members of the Yugoslavian Olympic basketball team. Since I had traveled extensively in Yugoslavia, we enjoyed chatting about the country and various places I had been. But they were extremely curious about life in the U.S., and so I spent most of the time answering their questions. I remember how squeezed I was for space with these big guys all around me, and how pleasant and friendly they were. In spite of the discomfort, the conversations made the trip go by quickly. We even exchanged names and addresses, and later I helped a couple of them arrange an independent tour of the southern U.S.

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