First Plane Blog

Oh. My. Gosh.
I have just witnessed the single most beautiful thing in my life. Seriously. Breaking the cloud cover was just breathtaking. It looks like a vast artic tundra, it looks like Olympus, it looks like Cloudsdale, it looks just amazing.  WHAT WAS I WORRYING FOR? This is incredible! I'm on the plane at the moment, about 26729ft in the air (and climbing), about 8210metres high. Going at 571mph, and the temperature outside is -9 degrees celsius. 
Before I start ranting about how gorgeous it is up in the air, I'll get my head out of the clouds and back on the ground to fill you in on the busiest week of my entire life.
Monday. My mum's birthday. I will not say how old she is because she will never forgive me, but she doesn't look a day over 40. Which she is. But she doesn't look it! My presents for her came in the form of a Sting and the Police CD, and a nice-smelly-reed-diffuser-thing. She got a lot of things from my sister and dad too, and did very well! Well done mummy! You do not look a week older than 49. Oops.


Tuesday, my sister and I had to take down the Christmas decorations.  (31003 ft high now!). That was a mammoth job in itself. Especially as our tree is about as high as the ceiling in our house, and we had to wrap it in binbags and then cart it up the stairs and then the ladder into the loft. We were knackered by the time we'd finished, which was well into the afternoon.
That evening, I went to meet a friend at a bowling place around 30-40minutes drive away. We got milkshakes, fries, and then a single alcopop (because I was driving) each. We didn't actually bowl, although I did play two games of pool with him. Needless to say, my sheer awesome talent shon through, and my raw abilities guaranteed me a win. Also needless to say, I lost the second game.


Wednesday I cancelled my place at University, and rang my car insurance people and the car tax-man-company to see how I would go about my car whilst being away for six months. After I'd dealth with all of the automated people (I hate those, spent around 5minutes pressing numbers and listening to his monotonous droll) I finally got through to a real person and got information I needed. Yay! Success. I am clearly a whizz and very capable of sorting myself out... yeah right.
That day we also went and sorted out my money for the trip, which was stressful. But everything is fine now and I have all the money I need to be able to get into the country, and not have them boot me out for having a Working Visa but being too poor to fund myself. I'm now able to check my balance online and make sure I'm not underspending. Err, overspending. That's what I meant, yeah...
After sorting that mini crisis out, I popped in to see my Nan and Grandad. Spent a happy few hours threre with them and talked about what I might expect when I'm there, who to say hello to in the family and what they were like thirty years ago... (we're now flying over Amsterdam, at 11:49AM, and the clouds still look amazing at 30999ft!!). Which was happy, and we talked about how Nan and Grandad met, and what jobs they'd had. They worked in this company called Woods, and I never knew this but they each made parts of a fan for... well, fans. Nan put the engines together and Grandad did something equally as interesting but I can't for the life of me remember what it is. But I enjoyes spending that time with them, and stayed until I had to go meet a friend at another bowling alley.
Sandy and I had a few games of bowling (apparently being a student gets you Unlimited bowling, which actually only allows you three games. Pish), although the keypad on the 'Enter your name' bit wasn't working very well so we ended up with names such as BES4T444QQQ, and QMQWQQEE which was very amusing for us. After some abysmal bowling from both of us (I cleraly have no future career in bowling, despite earlier blogs), and a suitable amount of catching up we had a game of Pool and then went to the legendary McDonalds for some munchies and more chats. All in all a good end to a very busy day.


Thursday I had a bit of a lie in. YAY! I swear, I haven't had a good night's sleep since before christmas, so you can tell how tired I am. As such, I'm prone to emotional over-reacting at the moment.
Anyway, I tidied my room up a bit, and then went to meet Malice at 3pm at Sloppy Joes. Now, the only time I'd been there before was on fireworks night with that awful Bacon Bonanza pizza. This time I was determined to make a good choice, and I'm pleased to report that their margherita pizza with jacket potato and beans is a much much nicer meal. They have redeemed themselves. I believe I have also mentioned before that, because it's American, everything is triple the size it should be? Well that definitely happened again! I ordered a Chocolate Brownie Sundae, and I'll attach a photo of it later so you can see for yourself just how insanely humongous it is. I put it next to a salt shaker so you can compare sizes. It's that insane.
We stayed till around half five, and then Mal went home, and I went to a college awards evening thing. Two and a half hours of 'Betty Jones was described as a delightful student, always a pleasure, and has received a STUPID amount of rewards! Personal achievement, Most Improved Athlete, the Cedrics Coaches award for Business studies (no, seriously!). And they now go to Cambridge where they are studying LAW! Oh, WELL DONE BETTY! *CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP*'
Yeah, it was baad. Bad, and boring. And they even got my details wrong! I don't expect them to know that I'm travelling to Australia, but they knew I was taking a year out and then going to uni (that was the plan at the time). So to just get "And Canterbury Christ Church is where Merlin (insert proper name here) has ended up, studying Primary Education!" was a bit frustrating. Especially as I was one of the last people to go up. Raaaaargh.


(Plane engines are very noisy. I think I may have a headache by the end of this flight. Still got eleven hours-ish to go of the first leg. It takes elven hours and forty-five minutes to get there. I just hope that I can finish my blog before my netbook battery dies. It wont last me the whole entire flight, thats for sure.)
I took Maddy home with me that night, and she stayed over. We chatted and gossiped and I possibly did a little bad-mouthing (gotta do it sometime!), and had a very nice evening. I showed her an application on my netbook where I can have ponies running around my desktop, entertaining me as I work :) She was quite impressed, and I tried to reinforce the fact that ponies rule and she should watch it. WATCH IT! (I has a filly Fluttershy on at the moment keeping me company). In the morning she helped me paint the other half of my suitcase. I now have a kangaroo, a boomerang, a kookaburra (i did that bit), a PONY!, a snake and other things decorating it, not including what Bestie and I had already done. It looks fab, and is very me. (32996ft at 12:15PM, 577mph) Been in the air for an hour - we didn't take off till quarter past eleven.


Well anyway, I drove Maddy back to her house 25miles away. Got stuck behind a flipping lorry for most of it, and was reduced to 50mph on a road where even 60mph is irritating. I was feeling pressed for time because I was also meeting Bestie back in my town at 2:15ish. But that didn't stop Maddy and I having a great big ol' good-bye hug outside her house. I haven't yet decided if six months is a long time or not.
I'm pleased to announce that I made it on time for Bestie with some fast driving on the way home. We went to Starbucks and had a coffee each and a catch up, and generally had a good time. Bestie was taking me out for dinner but she didn't even know where we were going. So of course we ended up at Pizza Hut. Can't go wrong there. It's a good thing we did too, because as it was we had trouble finishing one pizza between us, let alone going to a restaraunt and having a main course each. It was so filling we didn't even have room for dessert.


(Just has what I suppose constitutes as lunch. Some kind of weird lamb, in the shape of sausages? It came with small roast potatoes, gravy, some strange tomato purree stuff, and runner beans. Mum, you will be proud - I ate the lamb thing! It was a bit rough but otherwise not too bad. ANd now you will not be so proud - I left the beans and the puree, and the cheesecake (i presume it was cheesecake; it was hard to tell. Just looked like jelly on cream.) and the prawn thing with some creamy gunk on it, and red onions. I even picked the raisins (I think they were raisins) out of the bread before eating it. Some things will never change.)


Anyway, back to my evening with Bestie. She came back to my house after Pizza Hut, and we were just chatting some more. Girls have lots and lots to chat about, it would seem. None of it was very thought-provoking as we were both quite knackered, because we both had colds and felt a bit ill, and I was definitely feeling my eminent departure. I packed my case whilst Bestie was there, and I'm grateful she was because I think she helped stop my mum from getting too stressy. I think my parents should adopt her in my absence, and have told them this many times. (9hrs 55mins to KL, -30 degrees celcius outside).


When she left, I was crying quite a lot. Fortunately, I'm over-emotional-enough for the both of us, and she's as hard as nails, so there were no tears that I saw coming from her. She drove off into the sunset, and I went inside and wept :P But we have agreed a time to skype each other every week, so it wont be like I've gone, really... That's the plan, anyway. 
So yesterday (Saturday), I saw Quinn for the last time. Just for half an hour before she went to work, but it was lovely to see her. Nan and Grandad came over, and I had a teary goodbye with them, before  I cancelled my tax and insurance, packed an overnight bag, said goodbye to Shadow and we headed to Heathrow to stay in a Hotel overnight.
Compared to the Travel Lodges I'm used to, this Hotel was lush. It even had marble floors in the foyer, marble counters, marble columns - you name it; in the foyer it was marble. Apart from the carpet. That wasn't marble. We even had a bell-boy take our cases to our rooms. It was quite swish. Last night we played Scrabble, and guess who won with 137 points?! Oh yes! It was me ;) fun fun times. 27 of those points came from the word PONY, which I managed to get into the corner and make a TRIPLE WORD SCORE out of it. Mega impressed with myself there.


Got in a taxi at 7:20am, checked into Zone C at the airport, told them I was quite nervous and asked to have air hostesses check on me during the flight. Thankfully, she's been checking quite a bit so far. Her name badge tells me she's called Rowindy, and although she spilt some wine on me earlier, she's quite nice. (We're on the east border of Warsaw at the moment).
Back to this morning, and after check in the four of us went and sat in Cafe Rouge for an hour or so, before we said our quite tearful goodbyes and I made my way through Departures, and through the security bit. Went to WHSmith and bought two books for my flight - My Love, I Wanted to Tell You, and Something About Tiffanys. No idea what they'll be like but they're not the type of genre I usually go for so we'll see how that goes. Talked a little to the two guys next to me - they're going back to Brisbane after a six week holiday going all around America and Europe, and said they had a grand time. Now we're just trying to figure out how to get the tvs in the back of the seats to work. Rowindy said she was gonna reset our seats or something, but nothing has happened so far. I'll keep you posted.
It's now 1:16PM, we're flying at 33000ft, at 552mph, just crossed the border into Ukraine. Got 9hours and 37minutes flying, gonna arrive at 6:54AM KL time. 5608miles to go, 1143 travelled already. I'm gonna sign off now, and do another blog maybe on the next Flight.


Okay, hello again! It is now 6:14pm London time, and I'm still on a plane. Now, I'm bored. It would appear that the only three televisions that don't work on the plane are that of myself and the two guys I'm sitting with. Oh Joy. I can't even read a book as the cabin crew wont switch on the overhead lights for us. So all I can do is play Dragon Quest on my DS, listen to music, rest my eyes, and blog. I'm also getting quite hungry. I have another Twix in my bag, so may have to munch on that, some Starburst and some Skittles to keep me powered up. I'll stock up again at the airport I think. We're not due to arrive at Kuala Lumpar for another four hours and forty minutes, so I'm gonna go a leeeettle bit mad. I can't really sleep either, which is sucky.


Also, my hand luggage is massive. There's too much in my bag, really. I may buy a cheap carrier bag for the next flight because there's not enough room, and I can't find anything easily. Rage at that. 
My seat is right opposite the little kitchenette-area that the cabin crew use, and this guy, whose name badge reads J.K THEN (not kidding at all), dropped something, and as such I had a perfect view. I was pretty shocked at what I saw. I mean, I told the girl at the check-in desk that I was nervous, and she had told the staff which is why Rowindy kept checking on me, but what he dropped was a carbon-copy of my ticket with the seat number circled in BIG ink. Then, in block capitals it said 18 YEARS OLD. FIRST TIME FLYING. VERY NERVOUS.
I mean, wow. Soooo was not expecting that. Crazy much.


I mean I'm just so darned bored. Surely it's down to the crew to make sure everything is working before takeoff? Because they haven't offered a reason why it's not working - it's just 'not working'. Earlier Rowindy said I could move to a seat up ahead where there was a tv. I may go check it out, cause Tangled was on the list and I AM SOO BOORED.
It's strange to think that people at home are eating dinner now. What am I doing now? I just flew over Pakistan. But I think I'd rather be having a sunday roast now. Mmm nom nom. I wonder if people are tracking my flight? I'd like to track my flight, but apparently as I have no internet that's not an option. People must think I'm crazy being on a laptop as it is; it's not like they're used much comercially nowadays for anything other than internet usage. All I can do is type and watch Ponies. But Ponies drain the battery more, so I'm just typing at the moment.


Ugh I have another journey just like this one after I get off this plane. I shall definitely have to make up for missed movie time by watching lots and lots of films. Among the list were Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Marley and Me, Contagion, Homecoming, Polar Express, Puss in Boots, 27 dresses... I think I'd be alright. Thing is, movies are such a good way to pass the time because you become so engrossed in them. At the moment, I'm looking at a screen on the ceiling every few minutes to see how much time we've got left. I. AM. BORED! I can't even look at the clouds anymore, because it's dark now. It's around half two in the morning in KL time.
Ooh, would you look at that. There's New Delhi.


Well, I'm at KL now. Bought a rucksack for my too-big-hand luggage, which came to RM199. I don't even know what the currency is here, but I desperately needed a bag so I coughed up. thankfully they accept Sterling. I also found a Starbucks! Wahey! And am sitting with a mocha as I write this. I also managed to spill some at the table so spent an embarassing moment clearing coffee from the floor...
What struck me about Malaysia when we flew over was that everything was so flat. I mean, flat and green! There's like an entire forest/wood/thing surrounding the airport (which is so much quieter than Heathrow, it's amazing), and the tallest buildings I've seen are at the airport itself. It's really quite a beautiful country, and I didn't see much of it. Maybe someday I can come back and explore it properly. It's around twenty to one in the morning London-time, which means I've been awake for quite a while. Think I'll try and sleep on the next plane rather than doze. If I'm not too busy watching movies on a working (hopefully) tv.


Oh, but I wish they'd decide what to do with the lighting in the plane! It was on/off/on/off for absolutely ages. Most of the time they were off, so we couldn't read and stuff, and it was like being in nursery school or something because they expected us all to be sleeping or whatever. Then around two hours before we landed, they randomly came back on and the cabin crew burst out from wherever they'd been lurking and said 'Good morning! Would you like the tomato and cheese omelette or a disgusting chicken thing?' Or words to that effect. Naturally, I went for the omelette and picked all the tomato out. I also ate one of those french-bread-things shaped in a semi-circle. It was quite nice. After 'breakfast' at elevenpm London-time, I started reading a new book but didn't get far as they turned the lights off when I was about twenty pages in. So I think we were meant to be sleeping again? I really don't know.
Oh, and the toilets in Malaysia are really weird. You quite literally sit on the floor. It's disturbing.
Well I'm gonna catch up on some stuff online. I'll do another bloggy bit during the next flight.