Departure Day After months of meticulous planning, positive thinking and bubbling excitement the day finally arrived to set off on my big adventure Thursday 6th October. Now I have travelled overseas on numerous occasions and I have always had wonderful experiences however I never usually get excited until I actually arrive. This was definitely not the case with this trip, I felt like a 5 year old child filled with wonder and optimism.

The alarm sounded loudly in my ear as I turned to see 4am flashing in my face signalling that I had only 2 snoozes before I had to roll out of bed. I don’t know about you but I’m a snoozer, I love nothing more than to set my alarm 45 minutes early. I like the staged approach to waking up, it’s a bit like giving a child warning that they have 15 minutes to say their goodbyes and its home time. It helps me to mentally prepare to say goodbye to my dreams and their characters until we meet again.

I digress, so as I hit the snooze button I realised I was no longer dreaming but busily working out how much I still had to do in my head. Once again like every holiday I’ve taken, I found myself still in the office late the night before making sure everything was just right. Having crawled into bed after midnight I didn’t exactly have the best night’s sleep but surprisingly it didn’t bother me because my inner 5 year old was jumping around as if Santa was coming.

I was staying with some friends who had very graciously offered to take me to the airport and with all good intentions we set off. We got away about twenty minutes later than planned and decided to take a short cut, the kind of short cut you’ve not taken for a long time and ends up being the long way after all. So after several road works and traffic jams I could see the time ticking away steadily and I have to admit my faith was wavering a little especially when I realised that the ticket said three hours before departure and not two hours! My heart started racing and all my good work looked set to slide away.

I quickly gave myself a mental slap and calmed myself down by visualising myself sitting in a first class seat being served champagne and nibbles. I must mention here that part of my experiment was to visualise being upgraded at least once on my trip. Sadly, I have to report that this apparently was not within my power on this trip. I have however not lost my dream that one day I will get an upgrade to business or first class. I called my trusty best friend and travel agent Laura to find out what my chances were of missing my flight due to my complacency. Once the lecture was over about being so irresponsible she finally assured me that I should be ok.

With my mind a little more at ease I went back to my champagne and nibbles in my head. I did arrive in time for my flights and plenty of time to sit and relax at my gate before departure. I pretty much went straight through all check points without delay which became a fairly common theme for the rest of my trip.

I’ve always felt a bit like a naughty child in a classroom if I don’t pay some attention to the safety messages and demonstration and always keep alert and focused until this part of the flight is over and then all bets are off. I know some people are really bad travellers and find it very difficult to sleep on flights however I am not one of them. It is not unusual for me to be asleep before we even get off of the runway. Once I actually closed my eyes for a second and then next thing I heard was “Prepare the cabin for landing” What? I missed breakfast? My flight from Brisbane to New Zealand was no exception, only waking to go to the toilet half an hour before landing and then went back to snoozing until we started to descend.

Until next time,

Janie xo