After leaving Sydney at 9:50 pm on Friday, landing in Abu Dhabi at 11:30 am on Saturday, winding my clock back to 6:30 am on Saturday, getting on another plane to Frankfurt at 8:55 am (which was really 1:55 pm on Saturday), and landing in Frankfurt at 3:30pm, but then winding my clock back to 1:30 pm for Saturday still, I am so so confused!! I feel like I can effortlessly bend time, and it’s pretty radical. Except, that it’s 2:30 am (but really 10:30 am) and my eyeballs have pinged wide awake.
On the first leg, I sat next to a business man with a low, thick accent who leaned in too close and had a dry cough, which rapidly progressed into a slurpy, runny nose as the voyage went on. I talked to him for a tiny bit at the start, and he was pretty nice, but he was always wanting “one strong expresso please” and I kept thinking: “But why, sir?? you are on zee plane, there’s absolutely no need for you to be on high functioning alert!!!” At the end, after zilch communicado whatsoever (largely because of his borderline creepy aura, slurpy nose and high voltage sneezes), he murmured: “So, what- do you want my number? We can meet up back in Sydney? I live in Croydon. “
I internally whimpered. We’d only just landed and the seat belt sign hadn’t even been turned off. It would be an eternity before I could RUN, RUN LIKE THE WIND: “Aww, nah. That’s okay”. I trailed off, and pretended to be fascinated by the plane camera as we wound our way around the tarmac. After we got out, I could hear him coughing and slurping just behind me, but I walked as fast as I could, and never looked back.
Thankfully, on the second leg, I sat next to a lovely, 50-something year old man from Wollongong- Andy Herzog, was his name, and when I told him about how vegetarian meals are tinier than the regular meals (they ARE: generally baked vegetables and a box of fruit and a juice), he insisted that I have his chocolate muffin. “Aww, thanks!!” I inhaled it, and in the meantime, I asked the stewardess for one more. She returned with two: “Omg I’m so happy!” I said to her– and then, just like the gift that never stops giving, she promptly returned with two more. Andy and I munched ecstatically on our four muffins, before falling into a fake chocolate slumber.
When I disembarked from the plane, I hopped into a taxi driven by Asis- an Iranian fellow who smiled broadly and said that he wanted to take me on a day tour of Cologne “no charge, for free!!” and proceeded to explain that he’s having a family dinner tonight, but could he come by tomorrow?
“Aww, nein danke- I’m meeting up with Oimee O’Brien tomorrow, ich kann nicht”. I apologised, but peered at him on high “Are you a Creepoid?” alert. He said he could show us both around, or even just around Frankfurt and I said: “nein danke– for schizz” and he grinned and said that it was okay. Then, happily, he stepped out of Creepy Kingdom, and we had a nice yarn about Australia.
It is now 2:45 am, and I’m going to try sleep some more: Oimee gets here in 9 hours’ time: wahooooo!!!