Healthy Diet Essentials : First Class and Other Firsts

Monday, July 16, 2012

First Class and Other Firsts

I had to sign a ton of intense non disclosure and confidentiality agreements, so I'm not going to talk about the trip/work at all, to avoid the risk of saying something I'm not supposed. And I’m not sure if you’re at all interested, but I’m typing up a little report of my flight (and a few travel eats) instead. Why?

There was a Trader Joe's right down the street from my hotel, so I picked up some snacks for my room!

Because it was my first time flying first class on an extended flight and I felt like a princess!

I woke up at 4:00am to shower and get myself ready (I would be heading straight to wardrobe upon arriving in Los Angeles, no time to stop by the hotel first). At 5:00AM, on the dot, I was met at my apartment by a formal driver in a suit, who drove me to JFK in one of the nicest town cars I’ve ever been in – everything was brand new and shiny, the car stocked with chilled water bottles, breath mints, and snacks. I tried to take pictures, but it was way too dark.

A fun little snack plate - I loved eating the cashews together with the muffin. The flavor combo was fantastic!

We arrived at JFK and I went to check in at Virgin Airlines, where I got my first class plane ticket and then headed to the terminal. I bought a granola bar and a bottle of orange juice, which I ate along with an apple that I’d packed earlier. I’m usually not a huge orange juice fan, but my manager wanted me to be my best (and I did, too, of course!), which means the vitamin C was well warranted.

I got to board first, as a first class passenger, which was nice since I didn’t have to line up with the others and I had plenty of space on our full flight to stash my pilot case.

And I had plenty of room in general! The seats were huge and wide, with all sorts of cool reclining functions, and even when I stretched my legs out all the way, I couldn’t touch the seat in front of me.

Trust me – I tried.

Artichoke & Hearts of Palm seem to be big on the West Coast, but they're just not really my thing... I just can't get into them.

Without a lid...

The dressing kind of reminded me of pepto bismol - but luckily it didn't taste like it!

After a quick nap (on my part, not his), the super attentive steward brought me a menu. Considering that my only other time flying to California had been in economy on US Airways, and we didn’t even get a packet of peanuts, having a full breakfast menu was a real luxury.

And breakfast was delicious – I ate every last crumb of it all!

Breakfast! So good! :)

I chose the banana bread, granola, and fruit platter – I’ve never had lychee fruit before, but they’re delicious! All of the fruits were so sweet and fresh, seriously some of the best fruit I’ve ever had. The granola was crunchy and full of big clusters, and even the banana bread was tasty. Which is only an ‘even’ because I tend to prefer the heartiness of whole grain baked goods, which this wasn’t. After my meal, he immediately brought me a perfectly delicious, mild cup of organic jasmine tea. It wasn’t too hot, it came in a proper ceramic mug, and the flavor was spot-on. Yum!

I used this to tote around my stuff while in LA. A Garden Lites review is coming up soon!

Then I pressed a button, watched my little television screen slide out of one of my armrests, and settled in for a delightful flight on the Soul Plane.

Because guess what? Every Virgin America plane has a name and that was ours! Oh, and I’m not sure if this is on every plane, or just ours, but the lights were pink and purple. I loved it!

Mountains in the dessert!

I watched a few shows, as well as a fairly funny movie with Charlize Theron… recognize it?

Recognize the movie?

And had a snack (a chocolate peanut butter Luna Protein bar that I’d packed, and a pack of almonds from the flight attendant – yum, such a great combo).

So this is super fuzzy, but it's a mid-flight snack of almonds (from the airline) and a Chocolate Peanut Butter protein bar (from Luna Protein).

I don’t come from money, so the experience was amazing. I felt so special, like a princess!

I treated myself to the minibar - in particular, the box of dark chocolate almonds, the bag of trail mix, and the cashews. All waaaay over priced, but that's why it was a splurge - and it felt to delightfully decadent :)

There aren't any pics from the on-set meals, which were pretty much all of them, of course, as there were no cameras allowed. They're pretty much all random bits that I had here and there in my hotel room at really odd hours, but they were tasty!

And another Luna bar makes an appearance! Eaten with a bag of garlic salted cashews - YUM. The perfect pre-bedtime snack after a long day of 'work.'

And Luna Protein bars made several reappearances (pictured and not) in the trip. They were a great little something to have before bed when I got back from a long day out and they were even better as something to have on set and on location with me, to snack on! Especially if you're trying to stick to mostly vegan foods (which I didn't, as that's very hard to do on a set and I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable, be the vegan diva, or separate myself from the rest in a way that made me seem less than down-to earth, it's really great to have bars with you. They're a tasty energy boost that didn't weigh me down, but kept me going between meals!