As I live and breathe I can’t believe that my opinion on an airline could change as quickly as mine did between two minutes after taking off from Hong Kong. But I jump ahead.
Monday Morning- Kingsford Smith airport -The Dog has dropped me off and a Cathy Pacific plane heads out to Hong Kong containing me – a happy me, a smiling me – I am off to Europe and parts beyond for nearly two months. I am on, what appears to be to me, a fairly new aircraft. I have two seats to myself. I have a small screen in front of me – actually if you count the other one I have two screens for my amusement. They have videos-they have movies-they have computer games. I watch seven episodes of the Simpsons. I get to see the David Bowie episode of Flight of the Concords. I watch Shine a Light, the Rolling Stones concert movie. (Someone once told me that meeting Keith Richards is like meeting a giant rubber chicken. I see what they mean.) I am as you can imagine fairly pleased with all this. I complete half the Sudoku in the Herald – it wasn’t right but hell, I filled it in! I watched cartoons on one screen while playing video games with the other. People bring me food. Cathy Pacific, I conclude, is the greatest airline in the history of Aviation – I wrote that on the feedback form. I am very pleased. Oh hubris!!! Oh why was I so proud?? Why did I not realise that there was cosmic pay-back to be had? No man deserves this level of comfort in economy class – IF I learnt one thing in Catholic School – I don’t deserve to be this happy!
The fall was swift, and irrevocable as the lost languor of youth – the punishment for my crime – the Hong Kong Leg. I am sure Dante mentions this as being one of the levels of Hell, but I can’t read that much Italian yet. It has to be in there though. Firstly my carefully laid plan of “grabbing a shower” at the lounge at Hong Kong were quickly spoiled – I was checked in to leave from gate one. Fine. The club lounge is at gate 35. I have one hour. I walk. I walk. I follow the signs. I descend long escalators, similar to the ones in Daffy Duck cartoons, when Daffy is on his way to damnation. I only realise this in retrospect. This journey has taken me ten minutes and the last sign – I kid you not- is at a railway station in the airport. TO get to gate 35 and the refreshing ablutions- I have to catch a train. I am not sure if this will take me to Macau. I am not sure how long it will take. I am not getting on that train with 50 minutes to go. I bravely turn back to Gate One with my fresh undies still tucked discreetly in the back pack. It is ok, I think, I’ll just sleep most of this leg and then I’ll be in Rome. Va Tuta bene. Wrong. Porka miseria.
The plane from Hong Kong is crowded. There is the Italian Volley Ball team on it. I am seated next to a woman and her son who is I guess is about eight or nine. The seat is on the aisle but it seems so small. The plane is old. The screens are old. The controls don’t work. A baby cries. The baby continues to cry. In that particular distressing way babies do. The pitch gets higher. And louder. WE are not even off the ground yet. Oh dear.
We take off. The kid next to me starts too discreetly and quietly, much to his credit and dignity, hurl into an airsick bag. For the sake of his brave effort I gamely ignore his distress, so as not to draw attention to the fact he disgusts me. Poor child. I wrap myself in a blanket, put in some ear plugs, and try and sleep.
I fall asleep, or at least into the half dream room usually only experienced by native Shaman or John Safran on peyote tea. I drift for an unspecified time. I wake suddenly with the urge to break wind. Some of the airline food from the last flight is trying to escape prematurely. It wasn’t as god as I thought. It may have been, in fact, quite bad. Really badly. In fact, it might not be wind-it might be-oh Lord- clear the aisle-and make sure there is a cubicle open, I move with a speed that may have impressed the selectors for the Italian Volley ball team as I leapt form my seat to the plane, and taking my bag with lap top with me. Unfortunately the timing isn’t as good as I had hoped. There is, to be discreet, some leakage. Oh dear.
I will spare you the details. Needless to say, I spent so long in there that they sent in a stewardess to see if I had passed out undoubtedly in their minds caused from the balloons of illicit substances they had burst inside my bowels. I explained the situations. Were there some spare tracksuits pants I could borrow? No. Nothing? I beg incredulously – apparently not. Things are so bad in the airline game that they have to take as much weight off the planes as possible- this includes the few grams for a spare shell suit in case someone shits themselves from the rotten food they serve. I have cleaned up by this stage and fortunately have the spare undies. My jeans have copped some overflow however. I wash they affected area in the basin. I ask for a hair dryer to avoid getting nappy rash when I put them back on. There are no hairdryers. The stewardess offers to take the damp pants away and hang them somewhere. I think they roll down the window at the back of the plane and let them fly in the breeze a bit. I am asked to return to my seat. I am wearing boxer shorts and a shirt. The steward – by this stage a man has become involved – offers me a blanket – the plane is dark says he, none will know. SO I wrap myself in an impromptu skirt and sauntered back to my seat, as an international jet setting transvestite. Suddenly Sick Kid next to me has a reason to feel better about himself. He may have a week stomach – but at least he isn’t wearing a dress. I reach into my handy bag of medicines- yes I am a hypochondriac and yes – I carry medications. I have, as always in my bag of tricks, Imodium. They usually work a treat. I sit there under another blanket and pray I don’t stink.
The rest of the flight happens. At a certain stage, my jeans are returned, dry as could be expected. I regain some dignity with my Levis. The kid next to me and I enter a silent pact of the oppressed and embarrassed – the living kindness that the uncool and nerds give to each other – let’s never speak of this again, we decide silently, and it will have never happened to either of us. So I apologise to him for making cheap jokes about it and publishing it on the web.
I get off the plane. I buy myself coffee. Actually – customs- there is something wonderfully Italian about Italian customs. I walk up to Immigration. I try to look happy and smiley. I have my passport ready. I have my through ticket. I have my credit cards and traveller cheque card things. I am all ready. I pray there will be no full body searches. I step forward of the yellow line, I smile, say good morning and the board customs officer takes my passport. She opens it, looks at the picture, looks at me, gives me a “well you got fat” look – actuallys he didn’t that is just my poor body imagine talking- she stamps it, and hands it back.. This takes less than 2 seconds. I have a stamp with an I on is in the middle of a circle of European stars. I have the date of the stamping on it. It says the airport name. There is no leave by date. There is no talk about how much money I have, or where I am going to stay. I then follow the line around to the nothing to declare area. I wait behind a line. The customs officers stand in a circle and talk to each other. Other recently arrived passengers walk past me, unhindered by customs. realise it is an honour system.
None looks at me, looking hesitant, darting my eyes around to see if anyone is going to search me. I walk though. I am in Rome. Well airport anyway. I buy a coffee- it is good. I buy a train ticket – I stamp it in the yellow machine. I get the train. I step out a termini – I get lost.
I have a three minute walk. I have a sat nav devise. I have written instructions. I have a bad that is bigger than the area I had to sit in on the flight from Hong Kong. It is 30 degrees Celsius. I wander in circles for an hour. No one can tell me where the street – the stupid sat nave lags behind and has an annoying habit of swinging around to realign itself every so often – like telling you that you should be going in the opposite direction to which it told you a moment ago was the correct direction to walk in. The fact that I walk around like a sniffy, pissing terrier doesn’t help. What if the diareha stopping drugs start to wear off? Where is this street
I am exacerbated. My only Italian involves please. Thank you, blasphemy and a string of foul invective. Which are pretty much all you need to get drivers,’ license in Rome but more of that later. This street – where is it??? I ask merchants. I target Indians because at least they will be able to speak English without me resorting to my embarrassing Italian phrase of “Non PArlo Italiano” which means – I am an idiot savage from Australia where the education system is so narrow and poor that I can only speak one language. Or so it seems. Take that Howard. I guess.
No-one is sure where the street is- I realise later that I was within two blocks! By this time the st nav system had gone flat. Oh for a paper map! Oh for a basic grasp of Italian. Oh for a taxi to take me what I suspected would turn out to be 50 metres!
After circling and cursing and asking a policeman with a sub-machine gun (Carboniarie or something.) where the street was- he didn’t know-he could probably strip the machine gun blind folded but he couldn’t give directions, I finally found a lady in a chemist who was prepared to give an opinion-and good it was too! I had the street-but Italy being Italy, street names and sometimes numbers are hard to come by- after three local merchants sent me in different directions – I had at last come to The Casacolori!!!
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