Day 0: Hello transit my old friend…

So it begins, another trip, another opportunity to see the wonders of the world. This one may well end with a blown out liver or blown out ears, we shall see.

Welcome again to the world’s least read travel blog, the random ramblings of a semi-entitled white guy who should know better than try to make sense of anything, let alone anything different or cultural. But that’s where we’re at. It’s looking to be a very “white” trip this time, taking in a little of Germany, a chunk of Scotland, and a swerve through the Netherlands. First world problems all the way.

Expected highlights of this trip are expected to include: being yelled at by a 4-year-old young German lady for my lack of ability to converse in Deutsche; a spring across London to take in the Rosetti and Siddal exhibition at Tate Britain; The second half of Feis Ile, the Islay Whisky Festival; and catching Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Landgraaf, a little town with a big field in the south of the Netherlands.

My regular reader can also expect tales of me failing to communicate with locals in all languages, eating anything resembling food that comes near me, climbing to the top of tall things to prove that I’m not really scared of heights (which is a basically a fib), and trying to be as non-judgemental of local culture, customs and quirks while at the same time throwing in the occasional rant about how badly behaved tourists from many countries can be. And you get all this for free.

The driver of this trip was chronology: I, and several fellow comrades, have a significant birthday this year. For a bunch of years we’ve talked about how we should all meet up in Scotland and celebrate this. So here we go. For the regular reader, L won’t be along for this adventure, having sensibly decided that watching a bunch of people who should know better sitting giggling and steaming in a highland ditch wasn’t her thing. Instead I’ll be joining forces with M, P, G, and A for most of the trip, which should ensure shenanigans.

The trip starts, like all, in that wonderful no-man’s purgatory land of transit, the interspace between customs checks. In this case we’re looking at close to 23 hours, Perth – Singapore, 4 hours at Changi, then Singapore to Frankfurt. Due to first world problems, my lovely gold frequent flyer status is now silver, so there are no express queues or airport lounges this time. So be it.

I’m really looking forward to this holiday, it may have only been 6 months since Thailand, but it’s felt longer. Those 6 months have included a lot of hard work, a bout of COVID, and a bunch more hard work. Provided I don’t fall into a 100-year-sleep at the first opportunity to just relax in a long time, it’s going to be good catch up with the alphabet gang, have a break from the work-life routine, and see a bit more of this big old world.

So I’m sitting just across from the boarding gate, still 1 hour to departure, but I’ve seen the aircrew come past, so we have a plane. It’s going to be 24 hours until I next see a bed, many hours dozing in a chairs 10,000 metres in the air, bending my neck and back at all manner of crazy angles. But I’m travelling, and that’s a privilege so many people never have.