Yankeeland Part 1: Dear Departed

THESE EVENTS TOOK PLACE: May 31, 2009 (AEST)

Due to my fighting spirit, I didn’t go to bed the night before my departure day until well after midnight. I persisted [we now know unnecessarily] with the faulty blog script until I spiralled into a puddle of self-doubt and self-pity and eventually very unhappily gave up on having a blog pre-flight.

All went smoothly on the morning of Sunday May 31st 2009. My inexperienced traveller nerves insisted on Jenny and Luke driving me to the airport [we now know unnecessarily] rather early. Leaving just before 9am we arrived just prior to 10am, an hour early for check-in!

Surprisingly enough my flight was queued for check-in, so we marched straight to the line, checked in quickly and efficiently and bid sayonara to my stupidly heavy luggage. For those that are interested: 1x chockfull 65L travel pack with 1x bursting at the seams detachable daypack plus 1x carry-on mini wheeled suitcase with the addition of my good old Billy Elliot canvas satchel.

Jenny was so concerned about the exploding checked luggage being over the 23kgs per piece that we decided I’d separate the detachable daypack and check it in as my second allowed piece. Well ner-ner Jen, both pieces were under 20kgs!

Such was my relief at ditching the crazy-heavy luggage and not having to remove anything to send back home with sister, that I was oblivious to the fact that I forgot to attach my padlocks. I realised this when attempting to find a comfortable sleeping position on the plane, only to crankily wonder what the uncomfortably hard bulge in my right cargo-pocket was.

Oops.

Nothing missing!

Luke, Jenny and I sat ourselves down at Starbucks for some Hocho (I’ve been waiting several long Gilmore Girls Fan Years to use that word). Funnily enough, I got a call about my car at that time!



Mama Deb joined us at 11am and we somehow wound up discussing some of my sister’s less-pleasant travel experiences, digressing to some of my sister’s less-pleasant life memories. I won’t say any more than that Jen, don’t panic. You should have Deb will be as kind in the Comments.

As I bid my three companions goodbye and walked off into The Sliding Doors Jenny decided we should take some “walking away” shots. I handed my camera across the threshold and the doors snapped shut seconds later.

Laughter all round.

This happened twice more as Jen attempted the shot.







Doofus hadn’t filled out her Little Green Form in all the excitement of Hocho and Sliding Doors. Got sent away to fill it in, much to my embarrassment.

Oh! The rigmarole of boarding a frickin’ plane. My goodness. While thoroughly aware of the 100ml carry-on limits, some last minute toiletries bags shifting resulted in my attempting to carry on my Deoderant, Face Cleanser and Face Toner bottles. Dangit. Gooooorrrr-oooorrrrne!

Needless to say, I was a stinking, leather-faced mess by the time I got around to replacing the items.

Anyhow, after opening and closing, removing and replacing, here a feel, there a grope and out the other end of the gauntlet of security, I finally arrived at my Gate.

I wondered why I was the only chum lining up at Gate 9 for Qantas Flight QF11, as if I’m not aware enough of my complete travel ignorance, something like this has to happen to me. Of course. So after sitting on my case in the Economy queue for several minutes, I felt pretty damned stupid when an “update on the delay of QF11” came over the loudspeaker.

Chum, indeed. No doubt everyone in the place thought so. Yeah, go on, have a good laugh at the image of me sitting all alone in empty queue aisles while hundreds of other people sit around comfortably in the lounge areas.

Hysterical, yes. And, yes again, I realise I’ll probably find it hilarious myself eventually.

So, alas, my flight was delayed. There were continuous collective groans whenever they updated on the delay further. Personally, it wasn’t really a big deal to me. I started on Wuthering Heights and tried to muster some sympathy for my fellow travellers with connecting flights (it never came).

While all advice cried out for a window seat, I have to declare myself thrilled with my aisle seat. Maybe it’s because I was blessed with a skinny-weight, odourless, silent neighbour, but either way, I confess myself disappointed to find no Facebook “Aisle Seats” to ‘Become A Fan’ of.

I was two rows from the back of the plane on the right side, just steps away from the back compartment where the toilets and snackbars are located. One happy camper.

Despite getting little to no real sleep as a result of my crappy Lupus-diseased joints, I didn’t mind the flight at all. I was completely stoked to watch some much-desired entertainment and enjoyed the food, drink and snacks immensely.

I was the happy viewer of “The Reader”, “Frost/Nixon”, “The Heath Ledger Story” documentary and another recently released movie that currently deserts me.

I was the satisfied consumer of Chicken Cacciatore, garden salad, fresh OJ, hot tea, chocolate chip cookies, apples, Cadbury hocho, Splice icecream, bacon and egg breakfast, fresh fruit, fresh coffee and Coca-Cola.

My only complaints are:

1) The girl sitting behind me seemed to misinterpret the “Touch Screen” as a “Jab Screen”, I felt like someone was sending me Morse Code every time she finished, started or paused her choice of entertainment.

2) The guy diagonally back across the aisle from me seemed to lack awareness of the size of his own bottom and/or the normal way to exit a seat, consequentially leaving my nose inches from his bumhole every time he got up or down (which was frequently).

Apologies if this wasn’t the most eventful blog post. I know many of you want every detail, but please don’t think that means I’m oblivious to the fact that most of you don’t.

Fear not, the interesting stuff kicks off in my Part 2 post: Arriving.

Plus, eventually I actually hope to catch up and key in my posts at the end of each day. That way I won’t forget all my hilarious jokes and fabulous anecdotes that so colour the inside world of my mind.