Lounge Musings

You're waiting for a train. A train that'll take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you can't know for sure. Yet it doesn't matter. Now, tell me why?

A familiar line for most people. It keeps running through my head but there are a few differences.

You're waiting for a plane. A plane that'll take you far away. You know where this plane will take you and this is a big step.

Sly is currently sitting at gate 86 of the Brisbane International Airport. Of course she's the first one there. Gate 86 is the next to last gate right at the end of the airport and on the way here I've stopped at in front of every plane that has been parked and run my eyes over them and each of them puts the same thought in my head.

They all look like giant balloons.

I don't know if other people think they same when they look at them, and then I wonder if many people actually -look- at the planes they board. Mine is VH-OJA, a QANTAS jet from the spirit of Australia fleet nicknamed 'Longreach' obviously named with a tip of the hat to the rural Queensland town. Like most QANTAS planes the majority of it is white, the tail a cherry red with the signature flying kangaroo stenciled to it. The patchwork of panels that make up the skin gleam faintly in the mid-morning light but still you can make out areas of dirt and dust, a smear of grease here or a small streak of oil here. Not alarming things, like the car you drive to work planes do get dirty.

There is people in the lounge now, staring at there phones, reading magazines, even a gentleman that has fallen asleep already/again. I am, however, watching the ground crew as they prepare the flight. The catering truck has just pulled away and my thoughts start to wander to the meals I'll be served during this 16 hour haul. Then the stories I've heard that the cabin crew having to eat different meals during the flight incase one of the meals causes food poisoning lingers on the front of my thoughts but I'm not sure if that is policy or myth.

Now they are closing the baggage hatch and I think of United Airlines 811, the first episode of the first season of a series called "Mayday : Aircrash investigations" where a short circuit in the door and two designs flaws caused explosive decompression to occur. It also makes me think of the Lockerbie bombings where shortly after take off in the U.K. a bomb in the cargo hold of a passenger jet exploded and rained down wreckage on the town of Lockerbie killing people on the ground as well.

Then my thoughts begin to drift and I start sizing up the plane itself. It's such an immense thing. I was trying to get a photo of it before people started to arrive at the gate but no matter what I tried I couldn't a shot of the body and just one of the wings in a single frame it is just that immense. To estimate I would say it is about eight to ten city buses in size and with that I marvel that the seemingly majority of air crashes don't result in deaths on the ground as well. Ten buses worth of metal falling from the sky...

Strangely though, these kind of thoughts don't trouble me. I am still excited to step up to the counter and flash my passport and boarding pass to the steward and buckle up in this hundreds of tonnes of gravity defying wonder machine. I am going on a adventure and nothing is going to stop me.

Now for something completely different....

I have always wanted to travel. There's always been obstacles though. Health mostly, or to be more specific mental health which in turn lead to frequent job swaps and a strange attraction to low paying hospitality positions. I have been, however, rather stable for a long time. Stable job, stable pay, stable family, stable boyfriend. I've been able to keep the same job long enough to accumulate enough money and holidays that I can actually take one. Not happy with just picking one or two locations in my month long sojourn I've decided skipping across the United States of America then through Europe. Spending a few days in each locale this is about as whirlwind as it gets.

I've got my pass, my shoes tied tight. I hope I don't miss any flights.

And since I need to curb my swear and vulgar language while I visit these foreign locales I'll get this out of my system now:

 Look out world you mother fucker, I'm coming for you. Las Angeles... Sly's about to make you her bitch.