United Airlines Flight UA840

I write this somewhere over the pacific. No online I might add, although my laptop has detected a wireless network on this plane! Can't get it to connect though, so the joy of chatting to me while in the air will have to wait :-)

I'm about three hours into a twelve hour flight, which means this has already been the longest flight I've ever been on. Prior to now, the longest flight I've been on was a one and a half hour trip to Adeliade, where we had to go around because there was a storm over the airport. Put it another way: until ten minutes ago, I'd never used the loo on a plane, never been in the air long enough!

(The two women in this row, across the aisle from me, are having an inane conversation which included the phrase "so did you try Vegemite while you were in Australia?")

I've been on two 747's today. This flight started in Melbourne on one plane, then for some reason the same flight number swapped to a different aircraft when we got to Sydney. Oh, and the trip to Sydney was a "bonus" not mentioned on my itinerary. Going Melbourne-Sydney on such a big jet seems a bit excessive, especially since I had most of the area around me completely to myself - at least six rows in front of me were empty.

I'm way at the back of the plane. When we were on the ground, I could just see the wing-tip out of the window - I'm on the aisle side of the middle four seats. But as soon as we got into the air, the wings must flex because it disappeared from view.

And coming in to Sydney, I looked as hard as I could to see the usual Sydney landmarks, like that opera house thing they seem to be so proud of. As the plane banking I literally caught a two-second view of it through a window on the left of the plane. So I really was in Sydney!

We seem to have caught up with the night, although according to my watch and my body clock it's 5PM. In Los Angeles. it's just rolled over midnight, so we're at least on the same day now!

I don't know if all airlines do this, but one of the audio channels is connected to the comms from the aircraft to air traffic control. At least whilst we were in the air over Australia. I get the feeling there's not a lot of chatter going on now, on the long shift over the Pacific. I dimly understood some of what they were talking about - flight levels and the like. A flight level is short hand for a particular altitude. A lot of the talk was about permission to move from one altitude to another, and the traffic controllers making sure that no aircraft got to close.

It was fascinating listening to our pilot getting permission to bank right, and the whole plane then turning that way. Also very interesting to hear about the way runways are assigned etc.

The lingo is also very concise, lots of repeating of commands back to the caller, and lots of "roger that". It also seems that "G'day" is used a lot in Australian airspace instead of "Roger"! The American pilot seem to have gotten the hang of that, just.

We had the fun in-flight dinner just before, which was surprisingly edible. But I love these things because of the amazing way they pack a whole meal into on tray, with cute little servings of dessert, and a little roll in a bag. And all the condiments and cutlery in a little bag!

Anyway, looks like I have another nine hours in the air. Hooray. Think I might try and sleep in a bit.

Trip Around The World

I confess I didn't really feel ready to head off on this trip, despite the fact that I've been planning it since late 2007. And in fact in it's original form it would have taken place in the middle of last year.

I'm not sure why I've never gotten on a big jet (they are quite impressive I must add, there's a lot of power that must go into getting one these things into the air...) and gone overseas before. I think it might partly be a reaction to my jet-setting family, who have a tendency to disappear overseas for years at a time. Witness my sister for example who has lived out of the country for at least the last twelve years.

Back in late 1990, when I was a mere scamp of a youth barely 19 years old, I went on a longish trip to Tasmania, hitch-hiked about, rented a car with some disreputable English people, went to a party that went for three weeks (that's a whole other story). At the time, I sort of saw it as the first of a series of trips - first Tasmania, then the world! But it never quite happened. I remember landing back in Melbourne - or "Australia" as the Tasmanians are want to refer to the mainland - and heading straight to a peace camp that was outside the US consulate. This was literally days before the first gulf war started. And I remember calling up a woman I knew from a phone booth outside a hotel down that way - oddly this all took place near to what is now my office.

The woman I called was named Colleen, and soon afterwards I embarked on five year relationship with her. Well, two two and a half year relationships with a gap of six months in between. That kept me in Melbourne. Then I enrolled in art school then after a couple of years of that computing, then I got a job and by that stage it was 1998 and I'd still never had a passport. I also didn't have a whole lot of money, it must be said. After I crashed my first car in 1993 I didn't own another until early 2000. And indeed I only recently had said car towed away after it died of old age. See posts in this very blog about it!

So now I find myself having worked full time since about October of 1999 and I'm finally on a plane...

There was more to it of course. Organising a trip is complicated, and for some reason it always seemed too complicated. Just getting a passport is not a small amount of work. But I got one, fully two, nearly three years ago now. Not with any grand intentions of going anywhere, I just got in case...

This trip started as a plan to visit all my friends and family overseas. In the last few years, lots of them seem to have fled the country (hello vedmajulia), not to mention my much travelled sister. So whist I was in Sydney in late 2007, sitting reading my email in what I called "smelly nerd internet cafe", I fired off an email to said Julia's mother, who worked part time as a travel agent. I said hey I'd like to go to these places on roughly these dates, what would it cost? And she sent back an itinerary! I never realised it was so easy...

The original version of this trip was going to go Dubai-Switzerland-Berlin-London-New York-Washington. My sister was in Dubai at the time. But in the mean time I acquired a beautiful girlfriend called Deb, who wanted to come for part of the trip. Trouble is she's studying and has an essay due in late May. I'm studying to, or at least I will be in the second semester - if the Chifley business school has gotten my re-enrolment in their MBA course! That starts at the end of June. So there was only a little window when we could both be out of the country. So I decided to go the other way around the world - US first, then Europe then Cambodia, where my sister is now. And so here I am, some six hours of actual travel time into the trip.

I have about ten hours in Los Angeles, then a flight from LAX to Baltimore Washington International Airport, which will get me in at 6AM local time. Eep. I'm going to need a nap by then....

Things To Do On The Plane

Well, there's not a whole lot. There is a shitty movie on with at least one case member from Friends. This was preceded by several shitty TV shows. And lots of folks have taken to walking up and down the aisles. There's a bit of an open area at the back of the plane, where I spotted an oldish lady doing some basic exercises!

And now I'm going to attempt to play a game on this tiny laptop, until the battery runs out. Which it tells me is over six hours! Good if heavy battery this one :-)