Thursday, September 3, 2015

Travelling Hopefully - A Sleep Deprived Airport Prelude

I like getting to the airport early.  It gives me time to sit down, relax and panic about whatever it is I have inevitably forgotten without actually having enough time to go back and get it.  Besides Sydney Airport is a great place to spend some time.  It really gives you a greater appreciation of virtually anywhere else.

In this case "anywhere else" was a 747 owned (or more likely leased) by Thai Airways.  It was taking mere to Bangkok where, after a mere nine hours of waiting, I would board another flight to take me to Nairobi.  Always assuming somebody at Bangkok could give me the boarding pass that Sydney was unable to produce.

I got a window seat which pleased me as the only part of any flight that is other than utterly tedious is the takeoff.  I pressed my face to the window and tried to focus on the maplike display of Sydney and its suburbs and not at all on the fact that one of the engine mounts seemed to be shaking a little more than I was keen on.

Once properly airborne there was little to do except watch The Big Bang Theory.  This is a show I watch in multi series clumps whenever I do some overseas travel.  Air travel is great for letting you do those things you normally wouldn't waste your time on, as long as you can do them on an aeroplane.

Suvarnabhumi Airport has one major advantage over Sydney in that its not Sydney.  Aside from that its the usual collection of not particularly well lit corridors, gaudy duty free shops and incomprehensible announcements.  I had nine hours to kill which should make this the longest death scene since Hamlet.

So, what to do with all that time.  You might think I would take a nap or read a book both of which would be perfectly acceptable ways to while away the time.  Sadly I can't.  Possibly its the impermanent nature of both my presence and everybody elses at an airport but i simply can't settle down.  I take to roaming the corridors like a dishevelled and increasingly sleep deprived ghost.  Even this blog entry was written in thirty second clumps before my attention wandered off onto something else.  This could explain its disjointed nature and lack of anything interesting to say.

Or not.

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