Flying
While most of my experiences with US airlines (Virgin and Horizon excepted) have been pretty lousy, I've been fortunate to have had great experiences flying on foreign airlines like Cathay Pacific and Japan AirLines. I'm pleased to report that British Airways continued that trend with exceptionally friendly flight staff. Their sole departure from perfection involved making their way down the lone aisle at a snail's pace hawking merch on the flight from Istanbul to London. [And even that proved to be an opportunity to chat up an attractive British woman.]
Although I stuck with British Airways for most flights on this trip, we did take EasyJet from London to Budapest. Given the budget nature of that airline, I'd been expecting a pretty spartan experience but was pleasantly surprised to discover that it wasn't at all unpleasant. Furthermore, because they don't have a first-class cabin, we got to sit in the very front of the plane! The staff were pretty chill and even crowdsourced their translation by asking for a volunteer from amongst the passengers. When I arrived at Hheathrow the 2nd time, I decided to try a little experiment. Instead of listing my port of departure as Istanbul I put down Constantinople instead to see if anybody would catch it. Nobody did. I also managed to accidentally get several bottles of liquids through security despite having my carry-on baggage randomly inspected in Istanbul. Pretty incredible!