Flight/ Wien flughafen

SPAR, how I've missed you!

This is an extract from the travel diary I kept with me.

Monday night, upon the CA flight.

Here I am again, like I always am. It's been two years since I was last seated on a long haul flight. Travel is apparently an activity for either the very young, or the old. Not sure which side of the spectrum I belong to. I'm not particularly young anymore, though a lot of people would have me think otherwise, and apparently I LOOK young. For the past four years or so I've been perpetually stuck at the age 21, apparently.

This is a direct flight, O joy - 12 hrs 25 mins, all told. No transfer - that's why I did this. No annoying layover at Hong Kong or Bangkok. Honestly, just the thought of transferring flights is enough to make me feel physically uncomfortable. I spent so much of my childhood in airport terminals and it wasn't exactly what you'd call fun.

Things I am looking forward to: seeing #1b again. Very much so. I think I will spend a lot of time with this journal during this trip. Probably should have brought the other journal, really, the one with more pages. Yawn. The plane's moving now. Time for airline magazines.

I arrived at Wien flughafen right on time at 6am. It was much colder than Taipei, but I've been in Vienna before, and I'd anticipated that. I stepped into the flughafen and looked around, and something deep within me settled with delight, and I felt as if I'd gone home. I spent the first twenty minutes walking slowly towards the Ausgang in a happy sort of daze. I felt as if I'd come home, as if I'd been reunited with a long-lost lover. I drank in my surroundings happily: the cold damp Austrian air, the shiny granite floor, the German, and the rain and dark clouds. It's always raining in Vienna but I like that. I loved everything. I looked around, al most overwhelmed by my emotions. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed Europe and all of this, till now. I wondered if I'd ever loved anyone like I loved Europe. I went into the toilet and - this might be a little disgusting, but still - I smelt the sharp, acidic smell of detergent and disinfect and was reminded overwhelmingly of England and university there. I think they used the same brand. This, I whispered to myself in absurd delight, this is the smell of Europe.

I wasn't going to stop at Vienna, but straight onwards to Budapest. I'd booked a regiojet that would go first to Bratislava, and then to the Hungarian capital - the pearl of the Danube, they call it. I found the bus station (bussterminal) and then went back into the airport SPAR where I wandered the aisles in a sort of ecstasy, drinking in Europe and the fact that I was here, and that this would be mine for the next weeks to come. I got a Starbucks, dug some EUR change out of my pocket, and sipped away, feeling happy as a clam. Then I got onto the regiojet, and made myself comfy, plugged in my phone to charge, and felt a great peace of mind settle over me that I hadn't experienced in a long long time. I thought of all the people I was going to meet and all the places I was going to visit, and above all, I savoured the sensation of being here again, of being out here again, of being on the road and footnote friends and filtering people and all that bass that sometimes gets old but is also sometimes worth it.

Continental #5/ Baltic boogaloo, Prelude

Tallinn, Estonia. And yes, this is the Baltic Sea. 

I'm fresh off the plane and I have a diaryful and a mindful - and a heartful, too - of thoughts and emotions and feelings. And yet this time I am neither melancholy, nor am I clear conscienced.

Fresh off the boat, but off the boat nonetheless, and I can now say with all certainty that, looking back, this was my best trip out of all of them. I am two years older than I was last time and certainly feel older too (and in a bad way), and yet it was a much better experience overall. I met more people, and I met a much higher percentage of people I clicked with. And yet I think I've become less pleasant in the past two years that have elapsed. I certainly wasn't on my best behavior this time. What was it I said to someone - I'm usually a very nice person when I'm sober, I said, but after mulling it over a bit, I realised that in some cases I'm still not a particularly pleasant person even when I am sober. It depends on the person in question and my mood that day. So many people have told me what a nice person I am and how easy it is to talk to me, and my response is always that I'm nice to nice people. That's a direct quote from Jason, but it's oh so true. I'm sure - in fact I am positive - that a lot of people thought I was an absolute and utter tit. I'm not sorry about that, because a) I am generally unpleasant to idiotic people because ain't no one got time for that, and b) I'm not a hippie and it is not free love for all.

This trip also went much more smoothly than continental #4. I seem to remember a lot of stupidly early or late buses and trains, and lots of rushing around. None of that happened this time - well, I did have two early buses to catch, one in Brno and one in Krakow - but that was it. Everything else went perfectly, and again - to paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut - everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. I think I've reached that stage in life where I've really stopped giving very many f*cks because life is - I won't say too short, but it is not meant to be wasted on superfluity. I also let myself go rather during this trip - and that's a good thing, because I've filtered out all the bad and all that's left is the wonderful.

I don't know when I can write full updates, and this will probably have to do for the time being. I'm going to be very busy within the next few days and weeks or so. The beginning of a beginning and the end of an end. Watching Kingsman on my flight back - my direct flight. I love direct flights. I cried with laughter when watching that, there was a lot of hilarious English swearing involved. Funniest movie I've watched in a while. I'll probably try to watch it again when I have time and energy to waste.

Isms? Home is where the heart is. Europe, always Europe, the old world. My love affair with you continues - or rather, it never ended. I'm not sure where my heart is and that's why I travel - because I want to find my heart. And most of all, finding the perfect balance between hope and despair - those are the moments I live for.

Wien flughafen. That feeling when you realise that you don't need a visa to go to any of the cities on the flights departure board.