Day 1: Transit

"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."

Well dear reader - I am sorry, but, whilst travelling to the other side of the world I was too delirious to do much changing deep or permanent, unless you count the almost probably permanent damage to my mental health.

The first problem was the issue of my visa. The one that I only purchased because Leah reminded me that it was necessary. Now, there has been some very sensible setting-up-of-website-behaviour going on in the Australian Immigration Department or whatever they call themselves. You may now purchase a visa online as long as you have your passport number and are not a criminal. The clever website sends you a text message to confirm your acceptance and then the website explicitly tells you not to print anything as the visa is electronically tagged to your passport. This part is a lie. Do not listen to this if you ever wish to travel to Australia.
Luckily I do not believe websites and so I did print a copy of my email confirmation and it was a good job frankly because my visa did not get tagged to my passport, or rather it did but only in parts and so although it did say I wasn't a criminal it did not allow me to travel. This, as you can imagine, caused a great deal of worry at arrival in T4 on Saturday evening.
Luckily the good old fashioned version of my visa proved that it was the website that was criminal and not me and so after some fussing by the fantastically gay check-in staff at the BA desk it was decided that Australia should be telephoned and my visa was deleted and re-applied for and finally tagged to the damn passport and I was allowed across the golden lines into the departure area. Phew.

No one really tried to tell me just how odd it would be to get on a plane at one time of day, get off at the same time of day half way across the world, get back on another plane and then get off it again at the totally opposite time of day on entirely the other side of the world. Yes reader, I lost a day, but also so much more than that.
I can tell you that Singapore airport has some very nice arrangements of orchids and a pretty waterfall and that Sydney airport lies to you about where to get domestic transfers [more than once] and that BA is actually Quantas or perhaps it is Quantas that is actually BA, but I think it depends on where you are in the world.

I did manage to eat a lot. Praise the Gods who invented plane food and for the continuous serving of it to keep one occupied. First I had lasagne with a pleasant salad and some toxic chocolate sponge flan [yes I too did not believe it was really a food] and orange sauce which has a very particular consistency similar to baby food. A few hours later I was served a breakfast omelet with baked beans [the devil's food] and mushrooms and a muffin thing although all of this was coated in the juice of the devil's food [accept the muffin which came in it's own little plastic bag]. Then I changed planes.
On plane number two there was surprisingly good beef curry and an equally good oyster mushroom salad. Then some more breakfast but this time it was a chocolate coated twisted pastry thingy and some awful tea. Don't drink the tea on planes - bad ju ju.
On plane number three there was more breakfast but this time it came in a box with another seedy muffin [seedy as in poppies not as in old men]. It was not served with devil's juice either which was better than the first attempt.

I did eventually arrive. I hope that I will not suffer continuing mania as a result of sitting so near to so many strangers for so long. My ankles do seem to have grown in width even though I did all that shrugging and rotating and flexing that they tell you to do. Not attractive.

But hoo'ray for the genius of being able to actually be in Australia! And for the glory that is putting your feet down outside the airport!