Memorable First Times

I might have mentioned that I grew up in a big city. I was also very fortunate to be born to be into an okay family. My parents were not rich, but I didn't have to wait until I grow up to let say, go to shopping malls, or flying on an airplane. However, of course not everyone is as lucky, and I had some friends who did those for the first time when they were adults. The results were kinda funny :p

Let's name this first friend as Hiro. He grew up in a small village in India, not sure what the village name though. Anyway, he said that all his life he lived in that village, never been to the city. He then said, the first time he ever took an escalator was when he was 18. One day he visited his uncle in the city for the first time (seriously, I don't know how big this city is, Bogor is a city, Solo is a city and Sydney is also a city, but I dunno the size. Well, he said it to me as a city). Then, he went to a shopping mall, and he stopped in front of the automatic door, stunned seeing it open and close by itself hahahaha.. :p I know it's normal since it was his first time, but imagining him as an 18 years old stunned in front of the doors is really funny.

Then, he went into the mall, and he found this other weird object. Can you guess? Escalator! He stopped, looked at it up and down, down and up, confused. He said to me, he stopped and thought for a while, when is the right time for me to step into it???? LOL again, keep in mind this was an 18 years old boy :P

Another memorable first timer is the water tap, one of my colleagues. His flight to Sydney was his first time on an airplane. And he flew ALONE. Then, there was this guy named John Smith coming up to him after he got into the plane. Mr Smith asked him if he mind swapping seat with him as he wanted to sit next to his companion. Water tap being a nice guy said ok. Then he swapped seat and swapped his boarding pass too. He thought just like in a cinema, if you swap seat, then you need to swap the ticket too. Then the plane flew to Denpasar, Bali.

In Denpasar, Water Tap needed to get off the plane and transfer into flight going to Sydney. That's when the problem occurred.. he needed to produce his PREVIOUS boarding pass in order to get his connecting flight boarding pass!! Mr John Smith got off in Denpasar, so Water Tap couldn't swap the boarding pass. To make it worse, Water tap was a country boy who didn't speak much English! It was very hard for him to explain the whole situation. the officers kept asking him why did he need to swap the boarding pass just to swap seats? he told them he thought it was like in the cinema! I bet those officers were like what the.... Water Tap was very stressed. He was alone with little English. And he didn't have the phone number of his friend who will pick him up at Sydney Airport. There's no way for him to contact his friend. 

Luckily he had all his university documents with him. He gave all those documents to the officers and told them to check with his university to prove him legal. Now that I think about it, the airline should be able to get his information from the database, showing his passport should be enough. But this happened 12 years ago, so maybe it was like that back then.

The officers then called the university to check Water Tap identity. Luckily the phone call was picked up and Water Tap identity could be confirmed and he could get on to that flight. Until now he's still pissed off with Bali and what he refers to "YOUR people" LOL

Another small funny story is one of my cousin's, Ija. It wasn't her first time flying, but it was her first time flying with non-budget airlines. You know we all get earphones to use for watching movies on the plane right? She never had that with budget airlines. So when she flew the first time with Qantas, she was confused of where she should plug them in. Then she SKSD-ly asked the middle age guy sitting next to her.

Ija:  "First time flying with Qantas, Sir?"

Mister: "oh, no... I've been few times."

Ika: "oh! *excitedly* where do I plug these into???".

Lol