Two weeks of immobility staring out to sea, then a cry rang out from the distance. I leapt elegantly down from my tower like a jelly falling off a plate. I steadied myself, pulled up my pants and began packing like it was Christmas eve at the fudge factory.
Mere hours later I was on a flight back to the middle east and back to work in the sand pit.
I've never been the most confident traveller, cautious of airports and paperwork, gate numbers, obtuse signage and own ability to get myself into trouble over the smallest of trivial details. I am my own worst enemy in any airport, a veritable bull in a china shop, if that bull was six inches tall, made of rubber, full of helium, wearing a blind fold and strapped to a rocket.
This trip and its 28 hour duration went surprisingly well by my own standards, my only real stoush coming in Australia where I was unceremoniously pulled out of the line up for a full body scan and pat down. At the time I exclaimed that someone up there must like me, only to register that 'up there' must refer to the guy in the little booth looking at my genitals and winking and waving at the pat down guy.
Body scanners are a step too far in my opinion, but that's a gripe for another day. This time I only got two phone numbers.
Sydney airport was a vacuum of humanity and 5 hours I will never get back. The only real excitement centred around me trying to print my visa to show to border security once I arrived in the middle east, something rather important when the biggest barrier is language.
You'd think I'd do this before I left, but it hadn't arrived before I left, so this was my chance to get a gold star while signage was still predominantly in english.
I found a printer and fought with three cash machines until I materialized $20 Australian dollars. I was then rejected by twelve consecutive vending machines which refused to take my note before being extorted by the bar for a $6 ginger beer. Look at the look on his face, even the note was surprised and unable to offer any answers.
I now had the coins I needed to work the printer and miraculously printed my visa without further incident. I then spent my remaining $10 on a trip down memory lane as Pizza Hutt apparently failed in their genocide and rather simply drove New Zealand's best pizza company out of the country.
I am happy to report that they've since gotten shit and we're not missing out on anything.
I then flew from Sydney to Abu Dhabi, managing to sleep half of the 15 hours while waking briefly occasionally to puzzle myself with contortions which thankfully didn't lead to anything permanent. I don't think any of them counted as art. Unlike this
gif.
A few hours in Abu Dhabi airport and then on to Doha where there were some gusset ruining moments at the border in regards to my freshly printed visa, but in the end I even walked past security without having to declare my smuggled goods for homesick Kiwi's. I tried to, they just wouldn't let me, waving me through with some assertion whenever I tried to speak.
Maybe after 28 hours in transit it just wasn't worth the oxygen to have to be around me.