|
LAST PLANE HOME - PART ONE: It's a strange feeling, having subsisted through two nights - abbreviated, admittedly - when by rights only a single day has past. Notice my avoidance of the word 'slept' in ference to those "nights" - although admittedly I did snatch a couple of hours of shut-eye on the way to Los Angeles, it hardly counted. Well, it's probably best if I start at the beginning, so you don't get all confused and disorientated - though that would certainly be a good simulation for jet-lag, I suppose. Anyways, after the usual rigmarole of checking that we'd packed everything we were likely to need, we were picked up by the airport shuttle service at approximately 1100, and driven to the airport through the glorious day that it was; looking back along Marine Parade, Cape Kidnappers was near-perfectly visible, and the only clouds in existance were high-level, strictly non-threatening stratocumulus. A good indication of a smooth takeoff, at least - and I'll take as many such indications that I can get, especially when my flight leaves in well less than an hour. Which it did, quite coincidentally; only the briefest of waits was required before we were to be winged away North to Auckland. It's quite a spectacular view as you leave the ground floundering away behind you as you laugh in the face of gravity, and with brute force, ignorance, and a bit of help from aerodynamics, get almost literally catapulted into the air. I've never really liked flying - not a fear as such, but merely a mistrust of complexity. And an airplane is almost as complex as it gets in terms of mechanics and electronics, really - even a dilapidated domestic prop-plane such as ours. Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy computers and other electronic devices, but given my experiences of my own PC's temperamentality, I'm rather hesitant to place my life in the hands of one, and try to have faith in it's capability. Faith doesn't come easy to something I can't be sure of - which is probably why I'm not religious (which is just as well really, or the other passenger's would probably get mighty pissed off with my praying incessantly not to crash). Forcefully shunted aside any feelings of uncertainty, I sat back and enjoyed the view. Due to some aspect of the aforementioned complexities, electronic devices, such as my digital camera, for example, are not allowed to be active during takeoff and landing. I was rather disappointed that I wasn't able to record our ascent digitally, but certainly more than willing to oblige with anything that would, for instance, prevent an unanticipated plummet to the ground, or the premature greeting of a hillside. Such restrictions, however, were lifted as soon as we had lifted high enough to overcome them - cruising altitude of I-don't-know-how-many kilometres (a fair few thousand, I guess) - and out came the camera, and on went the discman. To a soundtrack provided by Trapt's self-titled album, the landscape of New Zealand went hurtling past below - I'd traveled the route from Napier through to Auckland before, of course, but it isn't quite the same in a much smaller, slower box of metal hurtling around the twists and turns of the imaginatively dubbed Napier-Taupo road. Verdant farmland of the Northern Hawke Bay soon surrendered to forests, both commercial and natural, and distant glimpses of Lake Taupo and the central mountains. Inevitably perhaps, this was soon covered by the atmospheric cotton-fields that lend NZ that absurd nick-name 'land of the long white cloud'. Better than the 'land of perpetual greyness and misery' that I was heading to, but no matter. Leaning back, closing my eyes, I tried in vain to calm the nerves that hammered at me to be constantly alert. A small note here to those that are personally aquainted with me. A great deal of the time, whenever I'm at a place which is unknown to me (pretty much anywhere outside of my home in other words), I'm a very serious-looking person, with probably a near-threatening look on my face. And generally, not a hell of a lot of fun to be around. I am, unfortunately, quite a paranoid person - for whatever reason - and I'm almost constantly trying to look everywhere at once to check the surroundings. Perhaps I was a nervous creature in a past life - I don't know, but I find it very hard to just relax (as perhaps some of you may just have noticed) without something to distract me. I don't expect to change much in this regard, but I am aware of it (after the fact, anyway - I almost never notice when I'm actually doing it), so perhaps bear that in mind the next time I'm so damned stony-faced. Well, where was I... Losing myself in the music, it seemed that only too soon we were descending into the clouds that smothered Auckland, as they so often do. It is always a quite surprisingly quick descent into Auckland's Airport - although the city seems so large when you're in it (to a person who's lived his life in a town of less than 15000 people anyway), it really isn't so enormous. 'Enigma' still repeating inside my head, I observed the various wisps of water vapour streaking by, the mud flats beneath giving away to asphalt. Phase one: complete. Well, finally we're on the plane, and sitting back trying not to think about how effortlessly we're defying the usually impermeable force of gravity - and what would happen if something went wrong. It's times like these, with little distractions, and reasonable clarity of mind (it was late at night after all, and I'm definitely a late-night person - maybe I was a nervous nocturnal animal in that previous life) that I realise what an idiot I'm being - especially when I can't do a damned thing about what I'm worrying so much about - and I manage to divert my attention for once. Luckily, rescue came in the form of one of the in-flight movies; Julia Stiles starrring in 'Carolina' - certainly one of the better rescues possible. I won't bore you all with a critical run-down of the movie, but suffice to say that it's probably one of the few serious movies (an almost romantic flick at that) that I actually quite enjoyed - it wasn't even that corny. 'Love Actually', on-screen next, was not such a delight, so I tuned out, and might have even caught just a few moments of sleep that must have been lazily drifting past - or I just absorbed myself in music again. At any rate, I think I only really caught the end of the movie - quite touching I suppose, but just a trifle overdone (but then, I think it starred Hugh Grant, so what do you expect, really). The so-called "Dramaworld" followed that one like a pack of rabid hyenas, and I desperately grabbed at some sleep to pass the time through that. I'm not the sort to get airsick, but if I'd had to have watched that, there might've just been a first time. Well, perhaps I exaggerate just slightly, but I'm sure I wouldn't have felt like eating breakfast, served soon afterwards, while 'Cheaper By The Dozen' played, and as we were greeted by the sun at the beginning of the day we'd just spent half of waiting to board the very plane we were traveling on. Confused? Good. We'd crossed the international date line, of course, so it was once again the 5th of April. I was feeling just a bit bitter about the lack of a view as we descended into Los Angeles International (LAX{ - I wish}), in which we were spending the next few hours in their 'Transit Lounge'. Quite honestly, that place was as much of a lounge as I'm the most handsome guy on the planet - lovely plastic seats, a rather insipid coffee machine (better than nothing though), and overall, a decidedly dreary experience. If they were trying at all to advertise their country to prospective visitors, it appeared they'd taken their customer-relations advice from Saddam Hussein himself - or maybe one of his ruthless sons (that's probably why they killed them). Needless to say, we were all quite glad to get back on the plane and continued on our way to Britain. Our flight plan was up over Canada, Hudson Bay, and Greenland, in an arc that took us the shortest distance. I think it was as we passed over Canada that we left daylight behind once more (and if there's a more sure way of confusing your body clock, I'd like to hear of it) though this time I don't believe I managed to grace it with any sleep whatsoever. 'Big Fish' was the first catch of the movie screen though, which, although exceedingly strange, was better than sitting not disimilar to a rhubarb for a couple of hours (a rhubarb with a near-dead backside, at that). Quite simply it's a random movie, with random characters, showcasing random events sprung from random circumstances, that are sporadically connected with a touch of randomness through a father's tale of his life, punctuated by random lapses to the present in which the director tries to wringe a relevant and fitting plot out of it - with some small measure of success at least. Suffice to say I wouldn't pay to see it. 'Foolproof' subsequently more than made up for it, however - though if you're an action buff it probably isn't quite your thing, despite boasting a storyline of people attempting to pull off the best theft. The emphasis is placed on the planning an tactics behind it more than anything, however - which suits me just fine. But then I'm a strategy addict when it comes to video games, so you can't really expect me to say otherwise. As airline-provided junk infused the screen once more, I became 'One' with Metallica, was 'Stigmatized' with The Calling, and got lost 'Somewhere Out There' with Our Lady Peace. But I'm not made of steel by any stretch of the imagination, and was tempted (or should that be tempered?) with Looney Tunes: Back In Action. You can never be too old for Bugs, Daffy, and the crew - pathetic as it may sound (but then you haven't just spent nearly, if not over, twenty hours travelling). The dawn over Greenland was a slow, salmon flush out of one window - joined eerily by the other only some while later; although travelling in effective reverse, we were also just coming out of the North Pole winter, and sunlight wasn't exactly at a premium. In the meantime, the movie was nearing it's climax (such that it was, really) and as Daffy finished saving the world, I realised that we'd slided over Iceland, slipped above Scotland, without even colliding with any high-flying telegraph poles (or near analogue), and were now dancing above the Irish Sea toward England. Approximately an hour later, we were stacking it above Heathrow (and not the Aussie term - 'the stack' is where the planes are all queued up as they circle like shiny great buzzards, waiting to gorge on their waiting meals from the sprawling carcass that is Heathrow) and were finally allowed to make final approach. Ironically enough, Heathrow was just as bad as London itself, and there were no parking spaces free, so we disembarked as we had boarded over a day ago in Napier - using stairs. It's so nice to see how much further advanced we are these days. The sliver lining was that there were coaches waiting for us (not horse-drawn luckily) to take us to Terminal 3, where we would have unloaded normally. Waiting out the Immigration officials took some time, claiming our luggage still longer, and passed customs with surprisingly little hassle, served by what actually appeared to be a person of relative normality, and such it was that our main ordeal was at an end. The long, arduous trip by plane finally over, we met our good friends Chris, Caroline, and Kathy (with Phil being absent) with whom we would be spending a great deal of time with the following week. It was certainly decidedly pleasant to be greeted by some friendly and for the most part recognized faces upon arrival into what was to me still very much a foreign country (I say 'the most part recognizable' as I only remembered the faces of Chris and Caroline with any accuracy - Kathy had unsurprisingly changed a great deal - quite noticeably so - but then that's what will happen in about a decade of childhood. She was not even three years of age when we'd last been in England, and now, just bordering on ten years later, she was a most delightful young woman quite nearly as snide and insubordinate as I am myself. Interesting, to say the least), especially since Chris was our transport to our accomodation - else we would've been forced to do what Caroline and Kathy did and take the bus routes - and with numerous bulky suitcases, that could have been... interesting. We arrived at Barbara & Don's (my great-Aunt & Uncle), unsurpisingly before the two woman forced to brave the buses (I felt a touch guilty about that, to be honest) and were greeted by a barrage of, well, greetings, strangely enough, and a well needed feed of some good, real food. We'd had meals on our flights of course (though you'll notice I omitted any mention of them) but, well, 'Airline Food' says it all really. Especially Economy-class. After C, C, and K left, however, we basically crashed - all those thousands of kilometres caught us up and heaped themselves upon us. It must be said that I don't generally have any problems with lack of sleep (given I'm writing this between 0000 & 0200) - an increased tendency to be irritable, perhaps (though who'd notice a difference there?) - but if nothing else, I've always said that no sleep at all is better than a short, interrupted nap. So, having quite contentedly fallen asleep (passed out - same difference) I was rousted once more for dinner. I managed to stuff (something) down to keep me topped up, then promptly (and admittedly rather rudely) plodded back upstairs to bed, and collapsed. |
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}