Day 1 – Stealth Mosquito

Frankston Train Station has a mixed reputation. It seems safe enough during the day, but there’s this underlying feeling that it’s lying there in wait, ready to devour anyone incautious enough to venture within its confines. If I didn’t know better, I’d actually say I was describing the plotline for the next Stephen King novel. Nevertheless, it was here that I hugged my family and said goodbye to them after nice lunch at the hoity-toity establishment  known as the Bayside Food Court. It’s sad to say that popcorn chicken is the last meal of a man venturing off into, for him, the complete unknown, but I don’t think I would have had it any other way.

The hours’ journey into the Melbourne CBD was uneventful, but it was the start. I sat like a zombie, protectively hugging my luggage, and listening to music on my iPad. I was actually feeling kind of numb, not really thinking of what was to come. Those who know me well, know that I don’t get excited – this is almost always because it is drowned out by the morbid dread that overtakes me whenever I have to step outside a familiar, comfortable routine. I’m getting better at coping, thanks in no small part to improvised theatre, but the anxieties still manifest themselves.

Switching to a bus at Southern Cross Station (sorry, young people, it shall forever be known as Spencer Stree Station to me) in the Melbourne CBD, I jumped on the airport bus – another non-event when you think about it – and after a 20 minute ride I was standing at the International Departures area at Tullamarine airport. The last time I had done this was 25 years ago, on a 2 week holiday to the United States. I felt exactly the same as I did back then – overwhelmed, scared and secretly hoping that I looked enough like my passport photo that I would be allowed to pass through unprobed and unmolested.

They never get the damned lighting right in passport photos

My fears, as they so often are, proved unfounded. Evidentally, I look exactly like my passport photo, which is to say “slightly homeless”. After getting through the ritual questions and other things, I was hit with the first of what is to be come series of bewildering things. Just after you pass customs, you enter into an area where you can buy duty free items. My first thought was “I’ve just walked into a fucking casino!”.This may seem like a bizarre idea, but I am seriously naive about a great many things. In comparison to the dull flatness of the customs area lighting,  it was like I had walked into a giant room where all of the worlds decadences have a conference. Huge bottles of liquor, chocolates enough to turn my pancreas into a singularity, electronic gadgets galore, perfumes and absolutely nothing of interest to me whatsoever (except maybe a new phone, but I wouldn’t know about that til later).

I finally get on my plane to start my holiday. Thanks to the wonderful folks at Peninsula Travel (whose documentation contains absolutely and unequivocally no references to penises in any way, shape or manner), I have been given an aisle seat for the first leg of my journey, at my request. What I had not requested was the obligatory fat guy who overflows his seat so that you have lean slightly sideways for the whole journey, or the animated kid who wants to explore. As usual, I just bore it with my usual small inner sigh.

Then, some strange happened. An Indian family in the row behind me had a dilemma.There was four of them and only three seats – they had booked late, and Dad was forced to sit by himself many rows back. Would I be ok with changing my seat so that the family can sit together?

“Is it an aisle seat?” I asked. The answer was negative.

The little demon called Assertian, who normally sits alone in the Green Room of my soul, reading magazines and watching the clock, was unexpectedly called up for an audition.

“No, I deliberately booked an aisle seat. Sorry” I said. Inside, the little demon was pumping his fist in the air. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for so long, I’m not going to be fucked over before I’ve even seen the in-flight safety briefing.

The Macarena is now an official part of all flight safety demonstrations.

As it turns out, Explorer Kid was the son of Overflow Guy, and soon into the flight they swapped positions. Dad was at the window, and Son soon fell asleep in the middle seat. So I had plenty of leg room (Emirates does well on that), and wasn’t otherwise going to be forced to sit like I have polio for twenty-four hours.

Apparently, anyone who begins a sentence with “I’m not a racist, but…” is automatically a racist. This, presumably, is due to the qualifier on the end of the sentence. This is said to forewarn you, since I am going to use the statement, but it must be taken in context. I’m not a racist, but I am culturally ignorant. This, I suspect, is due to my upbringing in a country town, where it was HIGHLY unusual to see an Asian person, an Indian or a black person, or in fact anyone who wasn’t born of Western European stock. There were no different points of view to be had, and so all I have had most of my life is stereotypes to work with.

I say this because, really, I didn’t know what to expect on an Emirates flight. Women in Burquas serving me something called Halal chicken? Prayer mats on the floor? Everything written in Arabic? As I stated, it’s cultural ignorance. I’ve had no reason to learn about these people, until now I had never been personally exposed to it. But then, it began to dawn on me that these people, all these people on this plane, are just people. Going about their daily lives, having families, paying bills and not a one of them wanting to decapitate the scruffy white guy in seat 25H (expect maybe the Indian Dad mentioned earlier – but I reckon my refusal gave him some peace and quiet).

It was a relatively quiet and uneventful first leg of the trip. Overflow Guy and Son slept for most of it. I had some sort of chicken meal, with all the little biscuits and bits of fruit. I drank two Jack Daniels and Diet Coke – (these things are free! Next time I go to Queensland, I am flying international). I slept for maybe an hour, if I was lucky. After watching a few episodes of the Big Bang Theory, I was suddenly in Singapore completing the first leg of my journey.

Changi Airport is large (but still tiny in comparison to others, more on that further). It wasn’t a long wait, but being midnight local time not a lot of the stores were open.Which was requisitely annoying, because I soon discovered that my phone, which I was led to believe would just work outside the country, didn’t. It could not actually connect to a service. But I was prepared – in my wallet I had kept an international sim card that I could just swap out and use. It had credit, so it was all cool as far as I was concerned. Alas I realised that Apple, demonstrating the sleekness of design coupled with sheer retardedness of useability that made them what they are today, had decided the user needed a pin or paper clip to eject the damned SIM card. So, no promised notification to my wife.

I was not out of ideas though. “I know”, I thought, “I’ll just use the free wifi at the airport and send through Skype”. In Singapore, to connect to the free wifi, all you have to do is enter your phone number, and they will SMS you a password to access the wifi. It was so simple to access because I just had to wait for the… you can guess where this went.My stress levels started building. Plans were not supposed to go wrong! But it was too late to consider murdering another tourist for their phone, I had to get back on the plane.

Why should I upgrade? It still works.

On the Singapore to Dubai leg of the trip, it was much of the same as the previous leg. Overflow Guy had left the plane at Singapore along with Explorer Boy, and they were replaced by a single Middle Eastern looking chappy who said all of two words and slept for the whole trip. This meant that the middle seat was empty, which is almost the Holy Grail of long-haul flights (the Holy Grail assumedly being the only male on a flight booked out by cheerleader squads). Again, given the generous room for the leggies, it was remarkably pleasant flight, with nice food, a movie called Outpost 37 to watch and only another hour of sleep. By the end, I was feeling rather tired, when we landed at quite possibly the biggest airport in the known universe.

I’d know that Dubai houses one of the tallest constructions in the world. Only the forthcoming statue of soon-to-be President Elect Donald Trump is taller. What I did not know is that it is also one of the largest transport hubs in world (Dubai, not Trump). Just about everything moves there on its way to something else. So I was ill prepared for the arrival. I step off the plane, expecting a short tube connected to the doorway into a building. But no, there’s a metal staircase leading down to… a bus. I kid you not, there was a line of buses literally at the base of the steps, buses that were to take all the passengers to the terminals. Seriously, they think we couldn’t walk on our own?

I am guessing that they probably discovered early on that no-one would be able to walk on their own. Firstly, it was 32 degrees celcius at 4am – not exactly pleasant for a slow amble through the noise and avgas, and secondly, it took a 15 minute bus ride to get to the damned terminal. It was that big. A plane could take off from the end of the runway, and land at the other with the occupants having formed their own society. The bus trip itself ended, I wandered into the airport proper and again was kicked fair in the cojones by my cultural ignorance. What did I expect? Arabic writing on everything so that I couldn’t understand? Every woman forced to wear a full burqa?

What I found was an airport that was just like any other. Tourists everywhere, English on everything. Admittedly, there was the amusing site of an Arabic man with what I am speculating was his two wives and children (it could be grandpa with wife, children and grandchildren for all I knew – the ladies were all shapeless mounds of black cloth with glasses). But then, nearby was a group of giggling schoolgirls in t-shirts that read “Brighton Girls Soccer Team”- (Brighton in Victoria, Australia, that is), and suddenly I felt not so alone. Thousands of other people were doing this, I should be able to cope.

I took a train to my next gateway in another part of the airport. Yes, a train to change planes. After arriving at my gate, the hungers started to kick in, so I off I wander to the McDonalds near my gate, to be greeted by the same Indian girl whom I swear I see working at every McDonalds I ever visit. Maybe they clone them. A Big Mac meal looks nice, I feel, and I had purchased some Arab Emirates dollars in Melbourne knowing I would be staying here for a couple of hours, so I ordered one. The price was $27AED. I nearly soiled myself – how expensive was the food in this damned place? Later on I was able to determine I had only paid $9AUD for it, but at the time I was stunned. What had happened was that at Melbourne, I had asked for $50 worth of AED, meaning that I wanted the AED equivalent of $50AUD. But the nice lady thought I meant I actually wanted $50AED, so when I got it, I  assumed the exchange rate was almost 1:1.Ah, the amazing rage inducing things we learn.

It’s like looking in a mirror!

Back on the plane, on the last leg of my trip into Gatwick, London, England. Another aisle seat, on the bulkhead, with an empty seat beside me. Ah bliss, thank you again Peninsula Travel! I watched Avengers: Age of Ultron (years ago I would have thought it awesome, but it was watchable crap to me these days) , I ate roast chicken with awesome gravy, didn’t sleep and I got some tissues from the airplane bathroom. The significance of this last will become apparent later. I watched the onscreen airline map showing me all these European cities. Klobenz, Amiens, Luxembourg, Lille. It reminded me so much of the map in the game Battleground Europe, that I found myself thinking “Why is Amiens empty? Where are the units that should be there?”- and yes I know full well none of you will have any idea what I am talking about. Finally, however, we landed in England.

The nerves and anxieties began to kick in again when standing in the queue for entry into country. What if I was pulled aside? Did I look nervous and would be singled out? Had some African refugee climbed into my hand luggage while I wasn’t looking, and I’d be beaten and jailed for people smuggling? Your imagination almost always magnifies the threats you encounter. After about a 20 minute wait, I found myself talking to a cute immigration officer, the cuteness effect being slightly marred by the damned rings in the lips. After asking me my name, and why I was there and how long I was staying, we talked for about a minute about the archaeology dig I am doing. I mentioned doing it with the University of Exeter, and then she asked “How did you manage to do that?” – was it me, or was that a suspicious tone?

“I paid to do it. The University offers paid places on digs”. Oh crap, am I about to get called out and dragged away for an interview? Then she smiled, handed me back my documents and said I could go through. I am now fully convinced that it must be a boring job and she likes making people uncomfortable to relieve the monotony occasionally. From there, I made my way out from the airport to the car rental place.

The observations I have made about the English road system are the following:

• There are no road signs. We’re English, we know where we are going and we don’t care about you lazy foreigners.
• A road should be designed to be exactly as wide as 1.9 cars.
• Everybody on the road is completely bat-shit crazy insane.

To add to this, I am fairly certain that the actual layout of the roads was crafted by a madman. Nothing seems to go from point A to point B without taking in points C, D, E, Q and the Isle of Wight. The Romans invaded in 43AD  and had moved out by around 410AD because despite nearly 400 years of rule, they still couldn’t teach the natives how to make a road. I am certain many civic conversations went like this:

Roman Magistrate:”I need you and your men to build a road from here to that tree over there.”

English Peasant:”Ay-up”.

Roman Magistrate: “I want it to go straight there, do you understand?”

English Peasant: “Ay-up. Up t’hill, round t’lake, through t’fen, back around again. Maybe stop at t’tree.”

Roman Magistrate: “Look, we talked about this. Just to the tree. Nowhere else. Ok?”

English Peasant: “Ay-up. Just to t’tree. I’ll start at t’lake then, shall I?”

Roman Magistrate: “No, you imbecile. I want you start here and to go that tree over there.”

English Peasant: “Ay-up. We’ll have to cut t’tree down to put in t’standing stone, so we can go ’round it”

Roman Magistrate: “Somebody bring me some wine!”

I got my rental car and left the airport. 30 seconds later I was back in the airport because I took a wrong turn. 5 minutes later I was back on the road and going down south towards Brighton. About a half hour later, my GPS conked out. I had charged it at home, and it had not been on since I left Melbourne. But the batteries decided to run out.Oh great, so I had to try an travel from Brighton to Torbay by memory. I had no phone signal, so google maps was out. I got lost in Brighton for about a half hour before I managed to get on to the A27, which I recalled, and I knew if stuck to it, I would make it there.

“We’ll send Jerry some of the best maps of the country we have. They’ll get lost before they even reach London!” – General Montgomery, August 1943

The trip was long, and had some unscheduled detours. I was running late, was tired and stressed out, but I was inexorably moving west. I found that the time I gave myself was too little, and consequently I would not be able to see some of the things I wanted to along the way.Since I was travelling without the benefit of the satnav, and the fact that my phone was useless, I had to bypass a lot of the castles and other fun things to see along the way. But I was tired and grumpy enough to not worry about that.

Earlier, I mentioned about taking some facial tissues from the airplane. This is a small anecdote that happened on the way west to my destination. While on the plane, my nose kept running, and like an idiot I had not thought to put a handkerchief in my pocket as I usually do. So I had been using the hand towels from the toilet to address the issue. On the last flight leg, I went into the bathroom and there was this little draw labelled “Facial Tissues” containing tiny packets of tissues. I grabbed one and put it in my pocket so I would not have to get out of my seat again to get another. Of course, my nose failed to run after that point.

During the drive, the nose started up again, and I remembered the tissue. So, while driving, I pulled out the packet and opened it with one hand while watching the road, and started wiping my nostrils with said tissue. It was remarkably thick for a tissue, to be honest. And why do tissues have sticky edges? To my horror (and relief that it had not happened on the plane), I discovered I was blowing my nose into a sanitary napkin. Some moron had filled the draw marked “Facial Tissues” with sanitary napkins. The lesson here, good people, is always read the label.

Anyway, I finally made it to Paignton, Devon an hour and a half half later than what I wanted to. I had managed to call ahead thanks to a nice fellow at a country service station who let me use his phone, and when I pulled into the car park, I was very surprised to be greeted by the character “Frohike” from the X-Files. Far from trying to involve me in some outlandish conspiracy theory, he pleasantly welcomed me, and showed me to my room.

“Remember to check your breakfast kipper for any alien nanotechnology”

At this point it was 10pm local time. I had been awake for 40 hours (kips on planes don’t count if you aren’t hooked up to CPAP) and I put my devices on charge, unpacked what I needed for the morning, had a shower then collpased into bed. I went to sleep almost immediately, and then awoke 4 hours later. Thanks, internal body clock. And then I heard him – the stealth mosquito.

meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee went the stealth mosquito. I couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Where are you?” I asked the air.

“meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” replied the stealth mosquito.

Oh well, I was awake, so I decided to start this blog entry. It’s taken me three days to complete. Thanks to my long trip to get here, and having no opportunities, I have no photos to show you. Yet. At the time of this sentence, I think I have around 300.All in good time,people.