Flying

Yarra Valley Chocolaterie

Do you ever get that feeling?  Sitting restless at your desk.

Do you ever get that inkling?  Somewhere else is better yet.

I get that feeling all the time.

Great Ocean Road

I find, my life these days, is one trip after another after another.  Sometimes, I think to myself, it’s way too exhausting planning all the fine details, making sure I travel safe, have enough money, have the right visa or enough date on my passport.  Sometimes, I think to myself, wouldn’t it be more fun if I wasn’t doing it solo?  Sometimes, I think to myself, wouldn’t it be more fun if I was?

Erskine falls

I love getting that feeling.  It’s the feeling you get as soon as you step in to the airport.  As you go through customs, with your laptop out, your toiletries in one neat zip lined bag, your boots off (or no boots at all), your military regimen perfected to the last left-right-left.  As you buy your coffee, your cake, you’re ready, you’re waiting.  You step to that gate and from there it’s a homeward bound feeling.

A few steps and I’ll be on that plane.

A few steps and the rest is out of my control.

Where I end up, on the other side, is a whole adventure away.

I LOVE THAT FEELING.

Domaine Chandon

Of stepping onto that Emirates flight, of finding your window seat and settling yourself in.  Head phones-check.  Closest toilet-check.  Closest exit-check.  Closest crying baby-check.

I settle myself for the ride, pick my movies, my music, work out my sleep schedule and make myself at home.

There is nothing longer, it feels, than a flight from the UK to Australia.  But that is where my most recent adventure took me.

Best chocolate ever!

But I kid you not, I still have that feeling, even on a piddly domestic Easy Jet flight, flying home to Northern Ireland.  Hearing those Irish tones.  The rise and fall, the inability to speak at anything less than the speed of light.  That familiarity, that sense of home.

That feeling, that once you get off that plane, life will never be the same.

Do you ever get that feeling?

I get that feeling all the time.

Melbourne Sky Line