And so the new adventure has commenced! This post is about a week old and a month later than the last one but with my track record I say that's not half bad.
I
entertained myself on the various flights by taking notes about them, these were
my impressions:
Well, here
we are on the first leg of the journey. I have over packed on the snacks in
order to avoid overpriced plane food of questionable edibility. Said snacks
seem to provide a modest amount of intrigue to my nearest neighbors as they
cast surreptitious glances at what will next emerge from my voluminous Ziploc bag
of sundries. The last item was a baguette sandwich featuring haloumi, ham, avocado
and capsicum, so they are snacks worthy of some interest.
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I am
relatively certain my seat is shrinking almost imperceptibly with every passing
hour and I have read almost half of my book, begun at the commencement of this
flight. I recently tried to do some stretching in the lavatory which I can now,
with authority, advise others to avoid. It involved an acrobatic little dance
which necessitated putting my face closer to the toilet than I feel was wise from a sanitary standpoint and I believe the process may have pulled something important
that I will want to use at some later date.
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The most
exciting thing to have occurred thus far was when I breached the curtained,
inner sanctum of the flight attendants to request water and then carried the
full, open cup back to my seat during some turbulence. There were elderly and
children in the splash zone, shit could’ve gone down. It is uncomfortably warm
on board though, so maybe it wouldn’t have been entirely unwelcome. Except for
me, I really was very thirsty.
Otherwise, I
have watched two movies and observed the man across the aisle from me who
sleeps with a hoodie over his face and wakes up only for more Jim Beam and the
man behind him who has either a cough or a sneeze (I can’t tell which it is) which
sounds exactly like the on board toilets flushing...a very forceful sound.
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There is
gravel churning about in the sockets where I used to keep my eyeballs. The eye
drops I cleverly packed for this eventuality are, I now realize, in my checked
luggage. I am ready to be there. <-- This bit was written an hour and twenty minutes before the end of
this flight.
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Laura and I’s three days in Thailand were
lovely, though a bit disorienting for me. The change from -1.5 degrees in
Hobart to 30+ degrees in Bangkok was something of a shock to the system. Add
that to the time change and the fact that extreme heat and humidity generally
lead to a shutting down of many of my faculties, coherent speech and movement
any faster than that of a snail for instance, and it was something of an
adjustment. Laura was well acclimated after five weeks in Cambodia and almost
three weeks in Thailand before I arrived, with the glowing skin of a person
grown accustomed to prolonged, cleansing sweating. She even moved at a normal
speed and didn’t cry out triumphantly whenever we entered an air conditioned
building or train, unlike certain other people... ahem. Fortunately, however,
she was happy to join me in much sitting by the pool at The Atlanta, chatting,
catching up and drinking the occasional chilled Sprite from a glass bottle,
which somehow just makes it better.
It’s a great thing they do in Thailand,
serving soda in recycled glass bottles. I stopped to take a photo of a bunch of
them stacked up for collection at the side of the road one day and Laura calmly
informed me “Apparently it’s hard to do that in Cambodia, because of ghosts”.
Upon further discussion of this baffling statement she explained that the
Cambodian people believe that small spaces like that, once emptied, are the
perfect spaces for ghosts to move into, so you can’t re-fill the bottles,
because they’re already filled with ghost, and that would just be rude.
Activities we did manage to leave the
inviting coolness of the pool for included a visit to a night market and
getting a Thai massage. I had forgotten what a great style Thai massage is.
Nothing like being put in a little smock/suit outfit and having a person walk
around on you, elbow you in the neck (Laura’s masseuse got especially
enthusiastic about that bit, she thought she might be smothered in the pillow
for a moment there) and pull your body into complicated pretzel poses to really
work the kinks out. Sadly, I think much of their hard work was then undone by
the long journey to the U.K., but it was nice to start the trip relaxed.
Upon arrival in the U.K. it took Laura and I
a couple hours to get to our hostel via the tube and walking a distance google
spitefully informed us, for reasons known only to it, was nine minutes but was
actually 35 minutes. It was nearly midnight when we arrived at the hostel but
it was fortunately above a pub and someone was there to let us in. Our brief
time in London, just a day in fact, was nothing to write home about, as it
were. We did laundry at Roy’s Laundromat in Tottenham, run by the sociable Roy
and his family, all lovely people. I saw a child roaring at a pigeon in the
High Street and rode a bus where I’m relatively sure the driver’s primary goal
and source of enjoyment was to break unexpectedly and hard enough to knock over
any passengers who were standing. Then we caught the train to Edinburgh. We’ll
go back to London again at some stage, but for now we just feel Edinburgh is
more our scene, and apparently the feeling is mutual, as we have been here just
over a week and have already secured a flat share and job offers. Our Edinburgh
future is looking bright!
