Sitting next to newlyweds....and other joys of long haul flights

I’m one of those strange people that love long haul flights. I love the anticipation of the food trolley making its way down the aisle toward me, hell I even like the food itself (except when they have loaded new catering out of an Asian airport and the dessert is no longer recognisable as edible food). I love knowing I have nothing better to do than watch movies and read books for hours on end with absolutely no guilt involved. I love the joy of stretching my legs out in my exit row seat and taking the plastic off my plane-issue regulation blue blanket.

I even love wondering which person barrelling down the aisle, weighed down with a lot more than 7kg of permissible carry-on luggage, is going to be my travelling companion for the next 24 hours. I have had some shockers over the years, the worst being the man sitting next to me on my flight to Fiji who had clearly never been introduced to deodorant. I swear his BO was so powerful I could smell it through my mouth.

As it turned out my seat mates on the Airbus leg from Sydney to Singapore were newlyweds, married only the day before. I saw them sauntering down the aisle looking like travel brochure models, all tall and spray tanned and with whitened-teeth smiles. She was wearing a little white sundress, he was pulling her hot pink cabin baggage. I figured it must be true love.

For approximately nine of the first 10 minutes, before we had even taxied away from the gate, they had their faces glued together. Making those little kissing sounds – you know the ones, like popping bubble wrap. I sat there and prayed that my noise cancelling headphones were going to get me through the next eight hours. They were giddily in love, telling the air hostess that they were on route to the Maldives for their honeymoon – text book romance stuff. I didn’t know whether to be jealous or irritated.

When they spent the duration of the flight holding hands and selecting the same movies to watch ‘together’ – on their individual screens – I settled on irritated. This did however quickly morph into jealousy when they were presented with a complimentary bottle of champagne from the air hostess at the end of the flight.

On the movie viewing front, personally I chose a succession of quality chick flicks, followed by ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. I thought this was appropriate given that I was also running away from home and embarking on a life-changing journey of sorts. Only my journey is more Write, Pray, Sleep. I don’t want to overdo the eating thing (refer last post) and no plan to do the love thing either (also refer last post). But I do intend to write, pray that I don’t get too distracted/get this book written/don’t run out of money, and sleep a lot.

There are of course some things about long haul flights that I am not so thrilled about. The re-fueling pit stops really are dreadfully boring, spending hours staring at blue/pink/green flecked carpet zonked out of your brain from lack of sleep. Those strange people who haven’t figured out how to flush the plane loo. The karate kid sitting behind you constantly kicking the back of your seat. Watching people in velour tracksuits doing butt and leg exercises to combat the threat of deep vein thrombosis – generally while standing with their bum right in front of you at eye height.

Anyway, I survived the flight experience, battled the Underground with my suitcase (why oh why are there so many underground stations in London without escalators?!) and found my way to Lizzie and Paul’s flat in Barbican, where I am now sitting staring out over the London skyline from the 21^st floor. If I squint and use some powerful binoculars I could almost see the time on Big Ben. Not distracting at all.

Yesterday I went for a wander in the streets around Lizzie’s place and stumbled upon an old graveyard where William Blake is buried. That’s the thing about London – there is so much history of writers and writing ready to be discovered around nearly every corner. Here is the pub that whats-his-name wrote poetry in, here is the house that so-and-so lived in when they wrote their classic novel, here is the café that Kathryn Tyrrell bought her soy flat white from when she was procrastinating from writing. It really is a city to make history in.