Level 1-1: A Day Airborne

I realise that this happened more than a month ago - last year, in fact - but it would seem odd to begin a blog primarily about living overseas without detailing how I ended up there.

We arrived at the airport ridiculously early - there at 9:00 for a flight which started boarding at 10:50. This turned out to be a good thing as since there were five of us, all with family in tow, people kept getting lost (read: wandering off to go to the toilet without letting other people know first). Time was spent moving between the two nearby Gloria Jeans, sitting around awkwardly in the lounge, reminding each other not to make jokes about being terrorists, and putting off saying goodbye. My own family decided that the best time to leave would be just before they fell into the next pay bracket for parking, so left before the others. Isaac was very brave and didn't cry at all. In fact, most of the time he was more interested in his DS game than the events at the airport.

As we all (mostly) sat together in the lounge, we discussed what we had to entertain ourselves during the trip. It would only be an hour flight to Sydney, but then it was almost eight hours to Singapore - and from there, a ridiculous fourteen hours to Heathrow. While my DS would last me about five hours, and I had access to three different notepads and sketchbooks, my laptop would be too bulky to use during the flight. I also didn't have anything to read. I meant to buy Earth: The Book, but I'd have to order it online - mum suggested looking for it in a bookstore that we passed, but like a fool I declined. I am very much regretting it now - I'll definitely have a look for it the next time I go to a bookstore. Or get it delivered to the school or something.



I feel like a bad Melbournian for taking a photo of Sydney Airport that looks stylish and artsy.

Sydney Airport was exciting. We took the bus to the international departures terminal and had a few hours to kill, so perused the various stores around the place.

If they have the Wiggles Store in the airport, then surely they're giving away the best bits before tourists even get into the country?

Ladies and Gentlemen, the most openly bigoted store in Australia. Well, in the airport anyway.

Aisling and Yve discovering the most exciting place in the entire airport.

 Soon, we realised we were hungry, and went about finding a quality food vendor.

I never said the quality we were looking for was "good".

Soon enough, though, we were able to board the flight to Singapore...

- - - - - - - - - -

We prepared ourselves for the nine-hour trip to Singapore; we tried to ignore the looming fourteen hour marathon run from there to England.

Added together, the flying time in itself would be a full 24 hours. It looks bad, written down like that. I guess to make it more representative of how the flights actually felt, I should say that they would be 86,400 seconds. No, that's still not right. It would be 4,320,000 beats of a hummingbird's wings.

Eventually, the plane was open for boarding and we found our seats. Before the flight attendants went through their safety dance, the pilot introduced himself.

His name was Captain England.

I don't think any of us heard anything else he said after that point. Certainly we were still listening, in between our poorly stifled bursts of laughter. We weren't laughing at him - it was a kind of disbelief, that our year overseas would introduce the awesome quite so soon. It was one of those events which, had you read it in a novel, would upset you because it was so far-fetched. It could not possibly be true.

True or not, Captain England kept us entertained for an hour. We discussed what his powers would be, which turned out to be a much more complex subject than we had originally anticipated. While it was obvious that he should be able to fly, in today's modern world superheroes are meant to be good all-rounders, not specialists. Flying no longer counted as a power on its own, and Captain England could hardly carry a shield of patriotic fervor like his US counterpart. We threw ideas around: The ability to conjure tea (of both drink and afternoon varieties), to make anyone's teeth terrible, to block out the sun at any given point in time - any number of stereotypes - but had no success.

As it happens, considering one's own super powers doesn't get any easier. I already have the ability to fix small objects such as pens (a Very Mild Super Power I share with David O'Doherty) , as well as ridiculously good luck. After a short discussion with Aisling, we decided that being Irish was a super power, although at the time she was unsure how useful it was. (As it would turn out, at times it's very useful, but more on that next time.)

Surprisingly, the nine hours to Singapore went very quickly. Coming in to land, we could see hundreds of boats sitting in the harbour, lights shining into the dark and reflecting off the sea. I couldn't take a photo as we were landing, so here's a rough visual approximation:

It was at this point between landing and re-boarding that I took part in a pre-arranged photowhoring moment. Lily gave me a Carlton scarf before I left, and made me promise that I would take a photo of myself on the plane while wearing it. Unfortunately it was practically impossible to fulfil this request exactly, but I suppose that "at the airport" is the closest that I could get. For Lily:

We were disappointed to learn that Captain England would not be our pilot from Singapore to England. This means that our theme song (which we had written for him, and was most definitely not an edited version of the Captain Planet theme song) was now factually inaccurate. It went "Cap-tain England / He's from England / Gonna take us from Australia to England". Nevertheless, inconsequential things like 'facts' should never get in the way of good art, so we kept singing it for a few days afterwards. Even superheroes need to sleep sometimes, I guess. (Unless not needing to sleep is your super power - but I digress.)

Did you know, readers, that fourteen hours is a long time? Because it is. It is really, really long. I began to worry about Rose, who would be travelling by herself later. Several of my friends were gracious enough to provide me with plane letters. But no amount of literature they had produced themselves would last 14 hours. However, I did receive one which came pretty close:

This is the most ridiculous present I have ever received. (It replaced my 18th birthday card, given to me by the same person) It's a Where's Wally-style drawing with a million things going on. It's beautiful and funny and well-drawn and fantastic and all those things. Kay Nguyen, you are a freak. And no, I haven't found everything yet.

We did, eventually, land at Heathrow... but I really can't write any more at the moment. I'll try and keep the next couple of posts as short as possible, so I can get to the good bits (and get back to the present day - oops)! :P