The 15 hour direct flight from YVR to Sydney is the best way to travel to this far-away land. Exhausted from the weekend, I slept a good 8 hours on the plane. I didn't get to eat a lot of food the day before I traveled, due to last minute packing stress and a general sense of 'holy shit I cant believe Im leaving to go home for 6 weeks'. I do not understand why it takes me longer to pack my bag after so many years of travel. It should get easier, it should be a streamlined process. But no - I obsess more. I find ways to fit liquid into smaller containers. I create different folding methods to pack in multiple pairs of shoes. This obsession with packing perfectly is killing me!
My flight from YVR left at 11:45pm. I found a little california roll pack that had seen better days and shoveled it down. Even old sushi in Vancouver is still edible. It mildly satiated my need for sustenance. I boarded my flight knowing that I would be eating again in less than 2 hours.
When I fly, I like to order the vegetarian option so that I get my food first and hot. I sit in the aisle, so that when I finish eating, I can easily get up to brush my teeth, and prepare for sleep while everyone else is locked in with their tray tables, like they are sitting on a rollercoaster from hell. 1 hour into the flight the hostess gave me my indian chickpea concoction. Smugly, I settled down to watch 'How to Train Your Dragon' and tucked into my little meat-free dish much to the chargrin of my fellow passengers. After my 3rd bite, I noticed the aircon blowing ice cold wind on my face plummeting my body temperature to below zero so I decided to try to turn it off without having to talk to the person beside me. I refuse to speak to people beside me on the plane. Too many times I have made the mistake of chatting to people to then to be treated with a 9 hour converstation on a myriad of topics such as gun laws, children's birthdays, Obama, and Oprah. Carefully avoiding eye contact with 29B, I balanced my plate in my left hand and I held it out in the aisle while I undid my seatbelt, removed my blanki and stood to manouver the aircon nozzle with my right hand. Now, most of you know that I broke my arm back in May and it is getting strong, but sometimes has spasms at unfortunate times...this was one of these times. My little balls of chickpea flung high in the air and splattered unceremoniously on the ground below. The quinoa salad landed on my seat and my smug expression turned beet red. I tried to clean it up as much as I could, but the rice just mushed further into the carpet and the small quinoa balls wedged themselves firmly to the stitching of the seat. I slumped unhappily hungry in my seat and began to pray for a problem-free flight from here in. I popped 2 sleeping pills to induce a coma-like state to forget my nigling hunger. I awoke 4 hours later sweating and nauseated. My stomach was growling...hypoglycemic, I imagined myself violently vomiting and passing out in my mushy rice aisle. I stripped down to my sports bra and began fanning myself with the safety card (in my opinion, the only thing that card is useful for is fanning one's body in times of great duress. The brace position wont save you in a burning plane). The passing hostess saw my panic and swooped in to see if I was okay. "Just a little hungry," I replied. She swiflty brought me a cookie and ginger ale thus saving me from an impending hypoglycemic coma. What is the moral of this story? Always read your safety card and know when to use it.
Steven, my oldest friend met me in Brisvegas airport. Like all true old mates, we swiftly fell into a groove and within minutes it felt like we had been living down the road from each other for the last 27 years playing cars in his backyard. We cracked our first beer by the Christmas tree: it was a Montieth Summer's Ale. It tasted like a refreshing ginger beer.
After that, we cruised down to Paddington Street to sit on the open patio of Iceworks bar. Across the road, people were gathering for the U2 concert. It was fun to people watch; it is still quite çold for Brisbane standards and it amused me to no end that some people were in winter boots and jeans. My most disturbing fashion discovery is that most Brisvegas men are now in short, tight jean shorts...leaving little to the imagination. It is a longer version of the budgie smuggler. Budgie smugglers for the urban professional. "But this is the land of the rising redneck!" I exclaim. Steven says that 10 years ago any man in tight shorts would have been beaten for wearing such monstrosities. But recently, little Brisvegas is going through a slight ''renassiance''... Cheers to Brissy!
1 comment:
Other than the plane......sounds like a fantastic time! I look forward to hearing more about your experiences!
Post a Comment