sleep?

Douala, Cameroon, 11:40pm, in an SM Brussels airplane: I sat down next to a lady fast asleep, sprawled over 3 seats. She amazed me - in the middle of the noise and confusion of loading passengers, she slept on, waking long enough for the take-off, then back to sleep again.

High in the air, 3:30am: Yours truly still can't sleep. How many different ways can you find to try to sit, lean, scrunch up, or half recline in an effort to fall asleep? I think I tried them all, looking enviously at my snoring seat-mate and at many others who were blissfully unconscious of my failure to slumber.

Of course, the whispers from the area by the toilets didn't help any. Some kind of concern over a male passenger apparently unwell. A lady approached the restroom and was greeted by a crew member... "Ma'am, are you all right? ... Did you eat the fish or the beef? Oh, the fish...." I think I'm glad that I don't generally like eating fish! This was followed soon afterwards by the general announcement, "If there is a doctor on board, please identify yourself..."!

On the positive side, everybody walked off the plane - no medical emergency that I could see. On the negative side, I never did get to sleep on that flight. But that's not unusual....