Never been down under.. Never thought much about going there, before finding ourselves before the Gate G5 marked to San Francisco, on the first leg of the trip. It felt a bit intimidating to go so far by way of such a very long flight. But here we stood, all our acoutrements of modern life and stuff around us – an adventure before us, some nerves taut within us, the problems of the day jumping through hoops behind us. It is hard to just leave and presume one has made a clean escape. The cell phone which persists in its dominant intrusive nature, trip or no trip, kept ringing with uncompleted tasks.
Several years ago, three kids and Judy took a trip, at the beginning of the digital device as travel companion phase , and we would huddle excitedly in the ectoplasmic bubble of the occasional “hot spot” where cell service was available, seeking the familiar, the connection to a friend from home, directions. It was such a luxury then to be able to locate ones self and not feel quite so alone, but in later comparison, I see it is now nearly impossible to get lost, or to be alone, anywhere. The digital monitor, our electronic ankle bracelet, can run us down whether in the Sahara, or a mountaintop in Tibet, denying any potential obscurity. Maybe we don’t yet recognize the price of our great dependency or what could be the trade off. Our gain is not necessarily clear.
The airport in San Francisco is quite sleekly modern, and the international gates provide ample people-watching opportunity. Singaporean airways has Malaysian – appearing garb on the flight personnel, we noticed, and the babel of languages, styles and cultures is eye catching. It’s hard to look at the variety of people and not appreciate our human jigsaw-puzzle world picture. Outside of my own little world of similarities.
Our entrance onto the flight required passports, and instead of tickets – those pesky flimsy papers that always get crumpled and lost – we now had biometrics analyzing our faces to see if we really are us. We stepped up to the screen, one of us comfortable with the new style, one of us resisting the sense of being caught like an insect in a microscope. Amazingly – we are proven to be us!! And allowed to sit in a seat too! The traffic in SFO is non-stop in the middle of th night. Our flight was scheduled to leave at nearly midnight, pacific time, and the old, the newly born, and the middles, were all propping their eyes open together, ready to find a space and try to sleep. Us too.
Australia is still several hours ahead of us, and we’ve been on these flights now long enough to grow full beards, if one is the beardish type.
Note: no matter how far you fly – they still have trouble providing a meal that is entirely edible or enjoyable. But it is a very large plane. We were served our dinner a couple of hours into the long flight portion, in the dark at what would have been, maybe 2:30-3 AM if we’d been at home.
Onward to koalas, winter time and kangaroos! Oh my! Later – sometime on Tuesday, we arrive.
I am grateful – we have the luxury of vacant middle seats – elbow room, literally. And I really have a lot of gratitude for the life affording us such wonderful, and new adventures. We feel very blessed, and optimistic about the next couple of weeks.
Again – just throw this BLOG out if you hate this sort of thing. We’ll never know.
JUDY AND LEW, SOMEWHERE OVER THE VAST PACIFIC OCEAN.