Fly by night (and day. It's a long way.)

Air line food isn't so bad at all. Not including a few odd crackers and similar unremarkable dry snacks, here's what I ate:

• Dinner: Some kind of chicken thing with vegetables that came without a menu (Air NZ, Wellington to Sydney)
• Dinner: Tuna pasta salad, "warm bakery," lamb and lentil tangine with cumin spiced vegetable medley and basmati rice, creamy coffee mousse (Etihad, Sydney to Abu Dhabi)
• Breakfast: Yoghurt, fruit bits, bread roll aka cold bakery, hot sausage and crushed hash brown and scrambled egg (Etihad, Sydney to Abu Dhabi)
• Lunch: Potato and chicken salad, warm bakery, beef stew with sauteed potato cubes and roasted vegetable, chocolate cake in cream cheese mousse (Etihad, Abu Dhabi to Manchester)
• Snack: Some kind of chicken 'sandwhich' that was actually more like a calzone, and was probably my favourite dish although its flavour may also have been enhanced by being consumed a mere hour and a half from my final destination
• Mango juice, orange juice, 7 Up, water

I give you this list to demonstrate... well, I suppose, that I like food.

Sydney looked like a scene from Sim City, coming in for the approach over the ocean – a god’s eye view of straight-cut cliffs, the terrain shifting almost suddenly from a brownish rock texture to the mix of dark green shades that form trees, breaking only for little patches of brown that might have held water. It all seems very flat. It looked like Australia. Flying above, the buildings looked small and simplistic, and had been laid out with careful thought to attract people to increase the population. There was some kind of utility provider, perhaps, with round white tanks and strangely shaped buildings with bits jutting out and bits sticking up, with prongs and knobs and wires. Then, with roads to divide, it breaks into the housing area. I saw a net set up in the bay as we went over, and little ships making their lines in the ocean. One day there will be pods that will take off into the sky and someone will be hoping for the highscore.

Elvish-like, a feature rises from
the centre of Abu Dhabhi airport lounge.

It was dark flying into Abu Dhabi, but the city looked different from NZ cities I've seen from the sky, long solid strips of harsh yellow-orange light for main roads, and fuzzy dull glows for what I suppose must have been other buildings. This was flat. Sydney wasn't flat. Abu Dhabi was. There was a full moon, and it followed us out the window with its reflection in the water below, jumping and changing from clear round to a smear as it tried to drag itself through the shallower bits and keep pace. There was a lot more water than expected, but I didn't get to properly see it because when we flew out it was over the land - so incredibly flat, and so dry and barren. It looked like an Arab nation or something.

But of course, I didn't really see either country so very much because I was in their airports, which aren't real places. They have clocks, but I don't think they're measuring time. I wandered. I sat. The airports weren't as big as I thought, but they became very full of people. Airports breathe with the intake and release of people.

By the time I finally arrived in Manchester, I'd watched many films and can safely say that The Hobbit has suffered from being made into a trilogy and that I really, really still don't like Kiera Knightley. My bottom was also sore. The woman at passport control was quite firm and demanding and wouldn't let me through until I said, "No, listen, I'm not secretly an immigrant intending to stay illegally in Your Great Kingdom and attempt to take advantage of your goverment's generosity. But I did bring fejoas into your nation, promise not to tell?" Then I had to wait for my luggae, and finally walk the gauntlet of people hoping you are someone else and secretly damning you for not being their Arriving Loved One. But I had my own person waiting for me, who lept from the crowds with a mighty roar and led me to the train station. She just wanted her fejoas.

It's cold in England. There was snow on the ground, coming between Manchester and York, caught in little pockets and dips on the hills and in people's gardens. There was blue sky, which Jessie said she hadn't seen in quite some time. There were brick houses with slate roofs and bare birches, and magpies with long black tails and a friendly way of hopping about that's nothing like the devilish attitude of our Antipodean magpies.

 

And as for York, Jessie's flat, the sound of pigeons walking over the bridge? Not telling. Not in this post. You've suffered a dull description of a journey. I'll give you better stuff later.

Oh, and I don't seem to have jet lag.



A bridge I walked over. In York.