Aeroplane Adventures

Travelling alone can be a frightening and nerve-racking experience for the best of us. Passport? Visa? Boarding pass? So many things to remember, so many things you end up wishing you’d left at home.

Though most children want the safety of a mother figure holding their hand during take-off and landing, I learnt from a young age that my mother preferred instead to squeeze with tremendous strength the arm rest bars either side of her seat, whilst taking deeper than deep breaths and closing her eyes shut as tight as possible to wish herself away to some foreign destination!

You meet the strangest people on flights; lone rangers travelling the world, young mummy’s and their tiny tots, crazy family’s attempting the yearly excursion abroad and grouchy businessmen turning their noses up at anyone in economy class. On my journey back to the UK I had to take two flights, changing at Atlanta. The first flight was possibly the most stressful flight I’ve ever undergone; with under an hour to get from the domestic terminal to the international one, it was going to be a close call, but to make things worse, the first flight was 45 minutes delayed! (Leaving me with practically no time at all to make my connection).This meant teeth gritting facial expressions on my behalf – not to mention the swollen hands obtained from crushing them with my bony bum.  

The 6’ 5’’ Basketball player I ended up sitting next to, proved to be a light hearted distraction to the disaster at stake if I missed my flight home on Christmas Eve. The conversation went like this:

Stranger: ‘So you’re an English Literature Major?’

Me: ‘I am indeed’

Stranger: ‘Who’s your favourite author then?’

Me: ‘Well I love Jane Austen – I’m definitely an Austen kind of girl!’

Stranger: ‘Oh really? My name’s Austin….’

CRINGE

Lucky I managed to clamber onto the flight to London right at the last minute. Greeted by my Dad at Heathrow, the past 24 hours felt like the longest in my life, but it was all worth it to surprise the rest of my family who weren’t expecting my arrival. The look on my mum’s face when I walked in was absolutely priceless. My simple ‘Surprise! Merry Christmas Mum!’ turned into endless sobbing and confusion - needless to say my mother refused to let me out of eye-sight all day. After living across the other side of the world for 4 ½ months I’m happy to be home for Christmas surrounded by the people I love. Bring on the New Year! Bring on Semester 2 at USC!