The day has arrived, Wednesday 17th January, Bernard becomes an international traveller! Our flight was not 1640 so I figured I would have the entire morning to relax and enjoy the morning and mosey on over to the airport rejuvenated and relaxed, lull. I did certainly get to the airport on time but it wasn’t the relaxing morning I thought it would be. I had packed the night before but there were a thousand last minute things to do plus the day before we found out we would need to get an international drivers permit to drive overseas (initially we were told it wasn’t necessary) so that involved last minute passport photos and rushing to the NRMA twice but I did get the permit so all was well.
Mum and Dad drive me to the airport and we found the Thai Airways line and began to queue to check in the bags. As we arrived, my travelling companion, Fr Richard also arrived with his mother and sister so they joined us in the queue. Fr Richard is a friend from the seminary and is also a seasoned European traveller so it will be great to have (a) company and (b) company who knows what he is doing overseas.
So we checked in, handed over our bags and soon found ourselves at the all emotional customs entry point. Through streams of tears, we bid farewell to our parents and we crossed the threshold into customs (that was a joke about the tears). Soon we had taken our place in the central isle and were welcomed aboard, in both Thai and English.
I am not used to flying long distances, most of my trips have been Sydney to Melbourne, so you take off, they serve the food and you land. When I went to Perth it was a bit odd in that they served the food and once I had eaten we still had two or more hours to go. The initial leg of the flight to Bangkok was 9 hours and needless to say that is along time when your usable space consists of your seat only. I was impressed however with all the stuff to watch on the screen in front of you. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that all the movies free! And also free were all the drinks! If you were so inclined one could sit there and enjoy any of the alcohol or spirits on offer and all for free (well I guess the plane ticket cost a fair bit but it still seems like a bargain when you are sitting there.
We got straight into the movies, I watched ‘Batman Begins’ which I really liked and Fr Richard watched ‘Get Smart’. If they are going to offer a movie in which thre are sequels they really should offer the other parts as well, so when I get back home I will have rent ‘Batman Returns’. In between watching the movie they brought us dinner, which now two days later I can’t seem to recall but I remember it was nice, I was quite happy with the food we received. It was very filling which is good when you are hungry but not so good when the only way to walk it off is by doing laps of the isles. Trying to get the body used to what was going on we stayed awake during the entire flight and planned on sleeping on the second leg as we would get into London early in the morning with a full day planned. I did watch a few more shows but I found that by the end not even the wide variety of audio visual entertainment was enough to keep me from looking forward to getting off the plane!
Our first stop was Bangkok at 2200 and we had now moved into our first time change. We had three hours to spare before our flight to London took off so we wandered the airport shops (which were still open). I still don’t know how it happened but we ended up doing a massive circle and came out where we began but such is life. This airport is newly built and it is very impressive, a lot of glass and curved concrete, looked to me like somewhere one would film a James Bond film.
After we enjoyed a drink and plate of fries at the very reasonable price of $20 (clearly airport prices are universally the same) we moved to board the next flight to London. This was a 12 hour flight so that 9 hour one we just got off was only a warm up. We again found our seats but we only just sat down when we were told there was room in the aisle if we wanted to move. Thinking the leg room would be a good idea, Fr Richard jumped at the chance and I followed. It was certainly a good idea, the feet room was great but it did bring us into contact with the socially deficient chap on my left more on him in a sec). According to Bangkok time it was 0015 when we took off so I really wasn’t interested in dinner (in fact I don’t even remember the take off, I feel asleep straight away, after all my body was saying it was 4am and wondering why I was still up). Never the less dinner was served so at 4am in the morning the stewards wheeled out some sort of pork noodle dish which I would have slept through completely except the smell was not pleasant, especially at that time in the morning.
After breakfast/dinner was served however the lights were dimmed and everyone went to sleep to digest their Asian feast. Everyone went to sleep except one person and that was…that’s right…the guy on my left. I slept solidly for two hours before I woke up and by that time the lights were off and the place was silent. The guy on my left however (let’s call him Jim) had his reading light on and was reading through the Sun newspaper (it was the same newspaper he was reading when we arrived but I didn’t make anything of it…yet). So this reading continued and after I had gone back to sleep and woken up again and found his reading the same articles in the same newspaper he was reading before I started to get quietly annoyed; after all his reading light which lit up out entire row and the row behind, was the only light on, every other person on the plane had their light off and was sleeping (or at least looking at the chair in front of them in silence). I got up to go to the toilet and have a wander when he finished the newspaper and finally turned the light off but as I was coming back I saw his reaching over to get a magazine and the light came back on and he began to read that! Grrr, I really wasn’t happy and was thinking up all the lines I could use such as ‘got an aversion to sleeping mate’ or ‘you really like to read hey’.
I kept my cool however and sat there in silence moving from dozing to waking. Finally he finished the magazine and turned the light off. Yay! He sat there in silence for a few minutes before reaching for the headphone and plugging them in. Good luck to him he can do whatever he wants as long as it happens in the dark and doesn’t disturb me. However…the music only lasted a few minutes and then he got up, walked to the newspaper rack, found and newspaper and was returning to his seat. I could see where this was heading and I braced myself for a comment because this was now just rude (I haven’t mentioned that during the second reading of the newspaper earlier to opted to dine on a sandwich and tea). So he sat back down reached for the light and as it came on I let out with a very frustrated ‘ you have got to be kidding me’ to which he came back with ‘ what, what’s your problem, I am not a good flyer’ (Of course I don’t care how well he flies, I only wanted him to sleep!) The stewardess was heading in our direction and I said to her that this was ridiculous, everyone was asleep and he would not stop eating, drinking and flicking through the newspaper which was stopping me and Fr Richard from sleeping. Jim could clearly see no problem or that he was socially rude but the stewardess offered us a blindfold for sleeping which did help, even though his thumbing through the newspaper continued. Hours later, as everyone began to move about and wake up, Jim decided he would then put down the paper and have a sleep so I have no idea what his problem was. If he was going to sleep anyway why didn’t he sleep when everyone else was instead of being a nuisance? Oh well that was an experience. We managed to get through it though and we enjoyed breakfast before we landed while Jim decided to read through the Sun newspaper for what by then was actually the fourth or fifth time (bizarre).
I don’t know how that part got so long but that was the story of Jim and the flight to London. At the end of it all though we touched the ground in Heathrow at 0620 on Thursday 18 Dec and were ready to see the sights!
We were driven round to the sanctuary area and stood at a height of about 9 metres to see what the Holy Father would see, even though the sanctuary will be a few metres higher. It will be quite a site to look out to this vast area and see it filled with jubilant young people as they arrive on Saturday, sleep there Saturday night and swell in numbers on Sunday for the final Mass.
It was good to finally actually site the Racecourse as this will be the location of that huge logistical task of distributing Holy Communion on the Sunday. And in regards to that I am very happy to let you know that we have brought on board three Franciscan brothers to coordinate the process, organising the personnel and fine tuning the procedures at both Barangaroo for the opening Mass and Randwick for the closing Mass. It is such a blessing to have them join us as they will be able to devote their energies into this mammoth job. No doubt we will be back to Randwick a number of times again very soon to walk the distances and see further progress unfolding.
