It's a tad difficult to make flights sound
interesting. Dedicating an entire blog post to what basically amounted to
sitting in a chair failing to sleep for 24 hours might be overkill, but I am
nothing if not overzealous.
Having packed my bags that morning, I was concerned
that my large backpack was going to be over the weight limit (I was bringing
two harddrives with me, which I thought were quite heavy). My backpack is
a pretty cool device - it includes an attachable daypack which is very
practical if a little dorky. My plan was to use the daypack as carry-on,
and check in the main pack. This meant the main pack had to be under 30kg
(Emirates has a pretty lenient weight allowance) and the little pack under 10kg.
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| Big brother and little brother |
I wasn't really concerned about breaching those two
limits. The thing I was considering was my future Easyjet flight, for
which my checked baggage will have to be under 20kg. Nan and Grandpa took
me to the airport and watched with concern in their eyes as I wobbled around
with the bag(s) on my back. The concern turned to scorn once I actually
weighed the bags - 13kg and 4.7kg.
I had already made my very first mistake of the
trip by this point – I wore the very clothes I planned to wear on the
plane. My logic was sound. I didn’t want to leave any unwashed clothes
lying around for 4 months, and I certainly didn’t want to carry them around in
my bag. I needed to wear something
suitable for both the English winter and the Australian summer. As no such outfit exists, I compromised with
something suitable for neither. I ended
up walking around in stinking hot weather, carrying things up from my dirty,
spider-infested garage all day wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and jeans. They were very good at absorbing sweat,
turning it to pure stench. This was
before I’d even looked at a plane.
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| Grandparents thinking they can get a photo of me as I walk to my gate. I got my own back. |
Plane stink is quite different to sweat stink (more
stale), and by the time I reached England I was a fine example of both.
Brisbane airport has an exciting new metal
detector. Actually, metal detector
probably isn’t the right word. It’s like
a cross between the Total Recall
x-ray machine and Star Trek’s space
engines. You walk inside a glass
container, which twists to shut you inside.
You must then raise your arms over your head as a space-age spinning
thing spins around you, buzzing. You are
released and shown a screen containing an outline of your body. If you are trying to smuggle something through,
a box flashes over the place where something suspicious was detected. How do I know this? They detected something in my shoes and on my
wrist (not sure what was in the shoes, but the wrist was my watch). I wanted to get a photo, but felt it might be
a tad inappropriate with all the security people.
The first trip was a 14 hour behemoth from Brisbane
to Dubai. For some reason I was tired
before we even started (it was only 8:45pm when we took off). I tried watching Beasts of the Southern Wilds but, to be honest it made no sense to
me at all. Then I watched Moonrise Kingdom, which made a bit more
sense. Somewhere around this time we
were fed dinner.
I’m a real fan of airline food, not because it
tastes good, but because it’s so organized.
The way the meal is divided into very specific portions, packaged neatly
upon your tray, excites me in ways that are illegal in some countries.
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| So very, very organised! Heaven. |
The meal itself was actually alright – the curry
was thick and creamy and had a good spicy kick to it. The tuna salad entrée had a lot of dill in
it.
The rest of the flight was weird. It was one of those flights that starts and
ends in darkness. The plane had lights
that simulated nighttime and sunrise, but as they only used the sunrise one to
signify the serving of breakfast (rubbery omelette) they didn’t really help
simulate the passage of time. I tried
watching a few foreign films, but reading the subtitles was becoming more and
more difficult. I ended up sitting in a
stupor watching A Bug’s Life. While watching one of the French films, I
noticed something a bit weird. Some of
the subtitles has been blurred out and rewritten over. One example would be when, in a high stress
moment, the main character calls the supporting character “you irritating
individual”. I wonder what they blurred
out?
So we reached Dubai airport. Yet another trip through security (took me
fifteen minutes as I had to take out my money belt, pants belt, hat, wallet,
watch, shoes, backpack, laptop and hidden wallet) brought me into the main duty
free area. It was 4:30 in the morning
when I got there, and the airport felt empty and closed. That isn’t to say it actually was empty and
closed – in fact, it was a bustling metropolis of eager shoppers swarming
through the long street of shops (15 minutes walk from one end to the other – I
timed it).
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| Found this in Dubai Airport. I thought it was funny at the time... Not sure why though. |
One other thing I noticed in the Dubai airport was
what I dubbed ‘Pee & Pray Stations’.
These were basically just the toilets, but each public bathroom had an
Islamic prayer facility (behind a huge metal door) right beside it. I know how they feel – coming off those
planes, you really get the urge to thank a greater power once you’ve unleashed
your load. Whoever designed the urinals
in Dubai airport really understands men.
They were individual, but each one took up almost an entire wall! Missing was impossible.
Dubai airport is a roughly symmetrical dumbbell
shape. What’s weird about it is that the
symmetrical portions are almost the exact opposite of one another. Where one side has a McDonald’s, the other
has Burger King. Where one has an
ice-cream parlour, the other has a bakery.
My next flight was to be on the Airbus A380 (!),
relatively short seven-and-a-half hours across the pond to Heathrow
airport. I had been lucky with my
tickets, being placed in the aisles for each flight (I prefer the aisles since
I hate asking people to get up so I can go pee, especially when they are
enthralled in the latest episode of Two
and a Half Men or whatever).
Unfortunately a mother had been split up from her daughter, and they
were looking to get seats together. To
start with they asked another lady if she could move, but she refused – she
wanted the aisle seat too. Being the
nice fellow I am, I agreed to move.
Actually, the karma from this move did me
wonders. Firstly, I managed to hold my
bladder the entire journey. Secondly,
when breakfast started to be served, I wanted the Arabic Mezze Platter option,
but so did the lady next to me. There
was only one left. However, knowing that
I had given up my seat, the lady let me take it. I did, and it was awesome.
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| Chickpeas, cheeses, flatbread... This is an airplane meal? |
Emirates has a neat little feature in their
entertainment system. Cameras on the
plane’s base, front and top allow you to watch the exterior of the flight at
different angles. The previous flight
had offered up different angles of complete blackness, but this flight promised
a little more variety as it would be bright the whole way, flying over
countries like Romania, Germany and The Netherlands. I had some hopes I might get a glimpse of the
Alps. Once we were up, I switched to the
channel to see… complete whiteness.
“Wow!” I thought.
“That’s a lot of snow!” Then I
realized we were flying over desert at that point. It was cloud.
The cloud remained complete all the way to London, and when there was a
gap, the 12km altitude combined with the low resolution of the camera conspired
to present me with a blurry grey fuzz that basically just looked like cloud. Regardless, having had no sleep for 30 hours,
I spent the last hour-and-a-half of the flight watching the various shades of
white slide past beneath us, waiting for the landing, which promised a bit more
excitement. That was probably the most
intellectually stimulating thing being watched in my row.
When we arrived at Heathrow, we were informed that
the terminal was a bit full, so we’d need to fly around for a bit and
wait. I had booked a coach to
Portsmouth, giving myself 90 minutes from the scheduled landing time to the
coach’s departure, so this news concerned me a little. Half an hour after we were meant to have
landed, we landed. 60 minutes remained.
As soon as I stood to get off the plane, all of the
urine that I had been carefully storing so as not to have to disturb those
seated beside me rushed down to my nether regions. I would have to make a toilet break as soon
as possible.
But first I had to get off the plane. I had forgotten how long it takes. Fifteen minutes after the plane had come to a
halt, I was off.
45 minutes remained.
Now for the toilet.
That wouldn’t take long, I thought.
Ha! All those seven hours of
pineapple juices and coffees was to catch up to me. I unleashed a devilish fury the likes of
which that poor urinal had never seen before.
Fifteen minutes later I left the bathroom.
Fortunately, customs was a cinch. I just slid my sexy e-passport into a slot,
looked at a screen and was allowed through.
Weirdly, the e-passport stalls were manned by officials, who looked at
the screen to make sure our face was as sexy as in our passports (mine was a
bit sexier, but they were still able to recognize me). No interaction, just look at screen, press
button, open gate. Clearly these were
the socially awkward customs officials, then.
I claimed my baggage went through the green gate
with nothing to declare and thought to myself “FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!” I may have also said that out loud. But I was not quite home and dry (well, I was
nowhere near home, but fortunately dry despite my bladder-busting toilet
adventure). First I had to walk through
what looked like a departures gate, complete with desks and metal detectors,
that had been abandoned in some kind of zombie apocalypse. Passing through this, we reached a shop or
something where a uniformed man approached me.
“Oh man,” I thought. “Why am I the guy that gets the random bag
inspection?” This was not what I needed
with only twenty minutes to find the bus stop.
“Train ticket!
Need a train ticket?” the guy asked.
I think my dumbfounded, open-jawed facial
expression was response enough for him, as he briskly sidestepped me and
approached the next sap.
Eventually I found the bus stop. I had to venture down into the tunnels
beneath the terminal. Luckily the
British hate walking, apparently, and there were travelators all the way along
the tunnel, which sped up my journey considerably. The bus arrived late (though not very)
anyway, so I don’t know why I was worried.
At the bus, I was met by a giant Christmas bauble
on legs – the bus driver. He was a very
sour-looking bauble. The bus left the
station and I waved goodbye to planes until next time, as we rounded the corner
and entered…
…another Heathrow terminal.
Leaving this terminal, I saluted my goodbyes to the
receding landing strips, thankful I would not have to return for some
time. We reached a roundabout, heading
towards a sign for the famous M25.
We then passed the sign, continued round the
roundabout and stopped at another airport terminal. By the time we left, I was very glad to see
the back of that bloody airport.
It was about this time that the bus started talking
to me. Nothing terribly interesting,
just “wapawapawapawapawapa” incessantly.
I tried asking it politely to stop, but a lime-green pumpkin rolled down
the aisle and told me to leave the bus alone.
At this point, I thought I should probably take a power nap. 30 hours without sleep does strange things to
you.
When I woke up the bus was crushing pedestrians
against an impressive medieval stone wall.
We had reached Winchester, and the two-way streets were about the same
width as the bus, and had footpaths on either side. I don’t think I would have had the balls to
walk down those footpaths.
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| My first meal in England. Fitting. Chips were a bit stale - I should have put more vinegar on them. |
After an extraordinarily surreal bus ride of
constant five minute naps followed by a startled awakening as I fearfully
checked the time in case I had missed my stop, checking the unchanging drab
grey-and-brown landscape for any variation (I saw a deer at one point), I
finally reached Portsmouth. Dad was
there, we had a pub dinner, and I slept.
Today I’m going to explore Portsmouth a bit. It’s already almost 11am, so I have maybe
five hours before it gets dark. Off I go!
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