An I’m extremely bored essay by Matthew Budd.
Mum
drove me to the airport with my sister. It was kinda weird sitting in the car
and thinking, “I’m not going to see these people, who’m I’ve seen practically
every bloody day of my entire life so far, for a whole bloody year.” Well,
actually I was thinking “I wish I was driving. I’m not going to be able to
drive for a whole bloody year.”
Airport
trolleys are really weird. For starters, they don’t have sides. I guess the
people who made them originally made trolleys of a million different sizes to
match all the million different sizes of luggage that people have. But then
people got pissed because they had to walk through the immense trolley parking
facility in the “Super rich-arse” trolley section looking for the “medium
large, pewter grey Samsonite with plate silver laptop pocket and custom large
coat storage area” before discovering that every other rich-arse geezer before
him had the exact same luggage. Another thing about the airport trolleys is
that they don’t have trolley wheels. They’re pretty much like the Coles
trolleys in that respect. I seriously doubt there’s another vehicle in the
world with as much control as Coles trolleys. As soon as you put your hands on
the tacky plastic rail, with the coles logo glaring at you no matter how you
try and cover it up with your hands. I guess I was a bit of a freak in that
way. But with suprisingly superfine control you shop, flying around the
corners, old and young alike, all professional racers, speeding towards the
checkout finish lines. In fact the trolley almost has you dragging along behind
it. More so with the airport trolleys. They have this sort of throttle. You
push the handle in and fly off. They only have two gears. Stationary and Bionic
Man, that is, if the Bionic Man could keep up with it. I know he can beat
horses but an airport trolley?
Duty
free shopping is strange. Woo. Tax free. Have you ever noticed that the items
at the airport end up being more expensive than in a normal shop? They’re
cunning that way. And why do we have to wait until we get to the other country?
Why can’t I do it on the plane? I’ve got nothing better to do, and it’s not
like I’m going to suddenly jump up, tear out the emergency exit door and scream
“Suckers! I’m not really going to another country!” and jumping out with a duty
free parachute and a cd player. It’ll take three times longer than you have to
open the bag they seal all that stuff to get the parachute out, but if you do
manage it, you’ll end up being extremely bored because the cd player didn’t
come with batteries. Or music come to think of it.
Michelle
had duty free with her. I did too, but my bag was as a mild spring storm to her
raging cyclone of duty free purchases. Michelle got south germany. Ulm to be
precise. I must say, despite my relative closeness to Berlin, Hamburg and
Hannover, well maybe not Hamburg, and the fact that Ulm sounds like you’re
trying to swallow with a crushed trachea, I was, and am, jealous of her
placement. As we exchange students say, “blame it on Eurovacance.” Well, noone
says that yet but I’m hoping to introduce it soon. Eurovacance placed me in the
suicide capital of Germany! Eurovacance made my post take three times longer
than it should! Eurovacance made that funny stain in my sheets!
Michelle
had her boyfriend with her. I guess they were trying to get a years worth in
before they left. It made me glad that Beccy wasn’t there. I was far too tired
to put in a decent effort. In saying good bye I mean. I guess I left on a
pretty boring note. I don’t even think my mum cried. I was appeased. Singapore
airlines, if you didn’t know, has a nintendo in every seat. Even in business
class. They also have movies and other boring stuff like that. I had the middle
seat on the right hand side of the plane, which was good for two reasons. One
was that Michelle sat on my left. Which meant that every time she had to go to
the toilet my eyes got some rest from the Japanese workout I was giving them.
The other was that I got to talk to Dave, the yoga instructor who came from
Melbourne and was flying to India. He was cool. His Nintendo didn’t work. I
laughed at him. He sat on his chair funny. I’m not even sure if he was real, or
if that suspicious looking sandwich had lodged itself by this time firmly in my
cerebral cortex. I think I’m the only person in the world who can open the
peanuts without them flying everywhere. Or maybe I’m the only person who has
nothing better to do than spend 4 hours opening a packet of peanuts. I think
they are the most nutrient airline food there is. Michelle got upset a lot in
the flight. I gave her one of my two boxes of tissues. I tried to feel upset. I
guess I’m like the airport trolleys that way. Two gears. Happy or asleep.
Getting upset makes me sleepy. I guess that’s why I sleep alot in Germany.
Anyway,
eight “Ninja Mario Attack Brothers Team World” filled hours later we landed in
Singapore. Cool looking trees with big leaves lined the dark and windy street,
set rather close to the runway I thought. Airports are the same everywhere in
the world. You experience the view for about five minutes as the plane comes
down, then you experience the climate for one or two as you walk down the
extending walkway. Then you’re back in the biodome. Eight hours straight flying
and you’re back in Australia. Only the super rich-arse people have different
coloured skin, and a different colour of Samsonite briefcase. Not pewter grey,
but greenblack-ash.
Michelle
and I delved into our treasure bags. I can’t remember how we got them open. I
think a tall man with dark glasses, a large scarf and hat wearing a trenchcoat
lent us his fibreglass knife for a second. Or maybe the security guard lent us
his pen knife, but anyway, we opened. And we discovered the thrills of too much
foam. We roamed the accellerated walkways for hours trying to find enough bins
to dispose of it all. Maybe the clever people who invented the airport trolleys
should invent the “too much foam airport disposal bin”. Then we found Annie. I
think she came from Melbourne. I can’t remember where she was going, but she
was also an exchange student. She has a funny accent. I laughed.
On
the Lufthansa flight, a horrible airline, perhaps an omen, we managed to scam
(hush hush) business class as Michelle and I asked to be seated together. We
only got these seats beacause the nice Singapore Airline lady complained for
us. Apparently the super rich-arse people weren’t going to Germany. Just the
economy class punks. Even though we had business class, I still found myself thinking
fondly of Singapore Airline’s Economy class. Singapore
Airlines. The friendly airline. Sorry, I just thought I’d
make fun of myself. Perhaps it was because Lufthansa sucks. Economy class
Lufthansa has a crappy magazine and that’s it. Enjoy. Business class was
Singapore economy with half a foot more personal space. Minus the Nintendo. I
watched the map channel the whole way. I pretended that if you look close
enough you could see Michelle fogging up the window with her sneezing even
though we were in the aisle seats. Listening to the stewards and stewardesses
speaking german made me feel scared. Then I got sleepy. They prepared us really
well for germany by turning the airconditioning to “Freeze their English
speaking heinies”, which I’m gathering was the cause of Michelles sudden
sickness. Gave her my second box of tissues and my cold and flu pills. Which I
didn’t need anyway.
The
difference between Economy and Business class food was also interesting. In
Economy, you get impossibly packed peanuts. In business you get advantageously
aromatic almonds. And they are easy to coax out of their conch of carbonic
coated keep. Ok. I promise not to allitterate any more. After dinner I found
myself in a predicament. Everyone was asleep, except me. I find it difficult to
sleep in chairs. I was trying to read one of the thousand odd letters Beccy had
given to me to read on the plane, but having Michelles head two inches to the
right of mine, coughing or sneezing or just generally emitting into my ear
wasn’t making it easy to concentrate (as charming as she looked). If I leaned
over the other side of the chair I had the same problem, but with a strange
chinese businessman, who managed to balance his sleeping form so, that only his
legs were on the seats, and his whole torso lay 3 inches above the aisle, arms
dangling, and his head resting on my arm rest. It was a very sticky (no offence
to Michelle, it’s not your fault you got sick) situation indeed.
I
finally managed to get to sleep. When I woke up, someone had wiped the armrests
free of drool and put everyone back in their right places. I guess it must have
been the gay stewards. They were both about 40 odd, left ear studded (they even
kissed once) but were both very agreable chaps, as far as serving dinner and so
forth go. Experienced my first German coffee for breakfast. I really think they
need warnings out on the sides of the cups: “Achtung: Will send you three days
past tomorrow with your head stuffed into your left sock.” I think they brew
it, condense it, brew it and then condense it with chipmunk fur. That’s typical
German coffee. Don’t forget to take whatever taste or aroma there was in it and
drop it out the bottom of the airplane with the rest of the goo. I limit myself
to one coffee per week. And on Friday my hands are still shaking.
When
the flight finally added up to twenty-eight hours straight, we got to
Frankfurt. I was instantly terrified of the German police, who look exactly
like you’d expect nazi’s to look like. Hat with the eagle on it and everything.
The dogs didn’t look too friendly either. This was my first impression of
Germany. Then we got locked up in a kindergarten until my next flight came, and
I had to leave Michelle there. Very short flight to Hannover, “I zorry, vi
don’t hev taim tu serrve ivrywon brekkfaust, but I zink ze time eez bedda fur
yoo.” The plane looked as if it were ready to be sold to Iranian terrorists.
There were even what resembled bullet holes that had been covered with plaster
that was a different colour to the rest of the interior, just above my window.
The crew was still working on the outside of the plane up until take off, so
you could say I was a little nervous.
Hannover
airport, and I got to play with the airport trolleys one more time before
meeting my guest parents, and driving auf das autobahn zum Wolfsburg.