My Southwest Experience.

I had wanted to fly SouthWest Airlines at least once before I left the US. The reason had more to do with their famous philosophy of putting Employees first & customers second, which I too greatly believe in. A happy employee community would naturally in turn take care of your customers. I had also read unconfirmed reports that they actually disallowed a customer from flying once for treating their employee shabbily.

The difference in experience started from the check-in itself when they asked everyone to stand in a queue based on the numbers on their boarding passes. I couldn't make out anything from that except that it regulated the crowd a bit and allowed them to segregate passengers which helped in giving instructions. You have to note here that SW doesn't have seat numbers assigned to individual passengers. You can sit wherever you want (As long as no one else is seated there of course !)

The drama then started when they started making fun of other airlines by actually asking on the PA system to keep credit cards ready as they serve peanutes (SW doesn't charge for snacks or check in baggages). The whole announcement of safety precautions was done in a very interesting fashion and not the usual dull manner which might have bored out the frequent business travellers. A lot of the Airlines seem to have adopted this practice of late, I have come across quite of few recently.

The cabin crew was very jovial and it reflected their genuine interest in the job. Mid way across the flight, to everyone's surprise, the crew got along together to organise games ! The first game started with asking people to jot down the names of American states that have the same first alphabet for the state & state capital. (like Indiana, Indianpolis). That was fun , the guy next to me got all of them right.

The next game was of course gambling, considering the flight was headed Vegas. All of them taking part had to put a dollar with their seat # into a bag and pass it onto the crew. They would then pick a lucky passenger and he gets the entire loot. One guy from my team made it this time.

And then the best of it, for the ladies. All ladies were asked to take out their lipsticks & give their best smooches ! Naah, not to their co-passengers as I was expecting ( I had a great looking lady near me),but to the napkin passed along with the peanuts. The crew collected the napkins and then, the pilot judged the 'best lips in the plane'.

The way the crew kept occupied everyone made sure the 4 hour long flight looked like a 30 min one. It makes so much difference in productivity when employees have fun on the job. Ah forgot to mention the final trick they played when we landed in Las Vegas - ' Hello everyone, the temperature outside is 42 degrees with slight rain, Thank you for flying with SouthWest , we wish you a great stay in Bahamas :) '

Le Reve, Las Vegas : Highly recommended.

Le Reve stands for 'the dream' in french & is the name of a production show in one of the hotels in Las Vegas. More details here. A stunning display of acrobatics, aquatics, and art with repeated displays of limits in human endurance, Le Reve I believe is a must watch in a lifetime.

The entire stage for the show is actually a huge swimming pool which is almost 60 feet deep with hydraulic movements for different stages that pop up out of the pool. So if you ever head to Las Vegas for a vacation, don't forget to catch this one at the Wynn hotel. It's a bit provocatively priced at about 150 $ for a ticket and it took a lot of convincing on my part to push my friends for it.But once out of the show, none of them could stop from being overwhelmed by the sheer experience of it. You can of course check out some youtube videos of the show. The theme is a bit vague with the undefined dreams of a young girl taking shape one after the other, but the sheer amount of work that goes behind each feat in the show is just amazing. I was first left gaping at seeing people dropping from almost 100 feet in the air into the pool only to later discover that some of the performers were actually Olympians ! True to what the Ads say, it really seemed like a dream with my eyes open when it got over.

This show also gives a nice insight on the kind of scale that a determined human effort can achieve even if it's just for entertainment. Las Vegas itself of course is an altogether different story in scale, both hotels & businesses that surround them.

Stay Warm !

I never liked being around in places where temperatures don't show the decency of sticking above a particular threshold. My first brush with a 'real' winter was when I was in Orissa. I was a kid then and had lived all my life in Chennai until that point. I wasn't particularly liking the frenzy with which my parents were accumulating those black blankets. I hated the very sight of those rough ,artless piece of clothing, sleeping in them for an entire night was a scary thought back then. But then I had to and I lived successfully through the ordeal. And that was my first encounted with real cold climes...not to mention that the temperature rarily went below 10 C anywhere in Orissa. 

Then came Munnar, where I studied, and survived four long winters. Though the place is in the state of Kerala, it's climate doesn't even remotely resemble the Kerala weather due to it's altitude. The fact that most of the houses there had a good component of wood in them didn't help things much. The worst thing obviously was the need to get up early mornings to head for studies. 

Temperatures did use to go upto 5 degrees C there and at times touch an yearly low of zero. But not any further than that. 

And then came America. As I write this today, temperature outside is a punishing minus 25 C , yep that's right, a good 25 degrees down under the freezing point. Thermals, tough gloves and layers of clothing become the order of the day. The heating system is the lone saviour which keeps you sane. If some bunny gives me an argument 'there's no power cut in America' as a potent reason to migrate here from India, I now know how to defend that. Ah well, if there were power cuts, there wouldn't have been many ppl left in most parts of this country. 

As I leave starbucks after a cup of hot coffee, the greeting that's thrown at me doesn't amuse anymore... 'Stay Warm !'.