… and it’s only 35,000 feet up.

Nestled among the clouds is a heaven, of sorts. In it, you receive phone calls while eating your delicious 4-course meal served on a linen-covered table, from within your own private “suite.” The interactive TV screen plays the newest Harry Potter movie (heaven isn’t perfect: I couldn’t get my first choice movie to work).

I think ahead a bit. Soon I will put on my supplied, comfortable, even stylish pajamas. (I already have on the socks with the red toes, and have placed my shoes in the shoe bag.) As I put on my pajamas, the attendant (yes, of course heaven has attendants, and they are cute, blonde, and with British accents) … she will flip my luxuriously large seat completely UPSIDE-DOWN … and it will amazingly turn into a full bed. She will place a duvet on it — not a cheap blanket, mind you — a feather duvet. (One that appears fresh & clean, I might add.)

And then, somewhat oddly for heaven, she will ask me to make sure my seatbelt is fastened over my body, so she doesn’t have to wake me up in case of turbulence.

Yes, “heaven” is Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class service. Forty-eight of the most amazingly creative, futuristic first-class seats I have ever experienced. (In fact, I first considered calling this “The future is now.”) I have been trying to think what I could compare the experience to, but this is one of those rare cases when “incomparable” means truly that — there is simply NOTHING to compare to it.

The suite consists of a large leather seat faced by a smaller little footstool/second seat. The second seat is very comfortable to rest your feet upon, but is also amazingly well thought out in that your friends or companion can sit there and talk with you. (It’s so well planned, in fact, that when the linen-covered dinner table came out, many people chose to sit facing each other, having dinner over the same table.) At the touch of a button, the seat magically flips over (providing different sleep/sit surfaces) and turns into a fully flat bed. Yes, this, on an airplane, somewhere over the Atlantic.

There have been so many other little touches. The masseuse — a wonderfully sweet Scotsman (no, Scotslady? What do you call a female Scot?) … the masseuse came by to schedule my massage. The walk-up bar has snacks out, and serves a wonderful little Virgin Bellini (the brand Virgin, not the “no alcohol” virgin) … and there has been more swag than at an ASI convention: pens, hand lotion, lip balm, earplugs, the socks and shoe bag, a toothbrush and some Crest, a water bottle, laptop power cords (which unfortunately don’t fit my laptop), and some loaner noise-cancelling headphones.

Even the lighting is the model of perfection … red lights glow in the footwell of the second seat. An LED provides lighting as necessary in the suite. When opening the coat closets, the lights slowly glow up, in a multitude of colors. And same in the cabin … no white boring light, but a mix of lavenders and purples that somehow slowly change (or maybe just change on different “mood” setting by the cabin crew.)

There is a phone to call your friends in the other suites (and you can also text message them, which shows up on their TV screen), and there is a console for watching movies (Tivo-style, with pause and rewind) and playing games. All-in-all … I’m blown away.

I’m a consummate traveller, and I guess it would be more professional, more worldly to just pretend it all didn’t matter … that this is all normal for me, no big deal. But I have to say, in my mind heaven does exist, and it’s at the low altitude of 35,000 feet in the exquisite Upper Class cabin of Virgin Atlantic.