It's just another plane day

There are few songs quite as specifically uplifting to wake up to as Winnie the Pooh's soft joyful rumbling voice singing "Gotta get up, gotta get going, gunna see a friend of mine!". This, mixed with a few potent shots of caffeine and you have a powerful elixer to remind you that in 3 hours your meager little human-bag-of-bones corpse is going to be suspended in the sky by magical jet engine powers for 13 hours.

You will then find yourself playing the "clothing selection" game one more time to confirm what you plan to don that corpse with for the trip. It's a tricky game, allow me to explain how you play!

The inexplicably frustrating game of Travel-Clothes selection: Rules and regulations

• The outfit should be comfortable, I mean hey, it's 13 hours on a plane after all
• But don't look daggy, you aren't a 12 year old boarding the plane wearing joggers, track pants and that weird fleecy style hoodie with her head buried in a game boy screen anymore. We in no way plan to resemble so.
• But at the same time try not to focus too much on aesthetics; it's a plane trip, not going out for drinks, you don't want to look too fancy!
• Also it should be made of a material that caters for possible spills, static, heat, cold, itching, running, sleeping and potentially walking around airports for the rest of your life
• It should accomodate the Australian summer weather you are leaving for the trip up and time in the airport here
• Yet also be comfortable and suitable to step out into the Los Angles winter in
• Oh ps it should also suit you
• And we also have to actually own this garment
• ...you have to be able to find an outfit that subscribes to all these rules within the next 10 minutes

I see.
And the choice I made for you last night... is not okay?

And that is how I ended up wearing a comfortable blue cotton dress and a pair of tights and stuffing a scarf, jeans and jacket into my carry-on while marveling at how I can make any process complicated, and yet how much this contrasts with the simplicity of my life summarized into one suitcase, a carry on and my handbag.

Your life in 3 bags or less

Hokai, bai bai Australia!

 I suppose at some point I should actually describe the adventure we're heading off for. We'll as has been established

AMERICA!

A little more specifically;

• Leaving Brisbane on Nov 28th for LAX
• LAX to Seattle
• (Hopefully) being picked up from Seattle airport by my older brother Nic
• One and a bit weeks living with Nic while he's at work during the day, adventuring throughout Washington by myself by day, being an epic little sister by night on dual adventures
• A week with Nic on holidays of duo adventuring
• Flying to California to meet Katie (Nic's woman)
• Spending 3 days in San Fransico
• Flying out of LAX on the 19th
• Arriving home on the 21st of Dec at Brisbane airport

 Two hours later in the car with two of my favourite men in the world with a playlist of randomly bouncy songs and one or two "oddly suitable" songs courtesy of Dad (eg "Los Angeles international airport") and we were suddenly pulling up at the international drop off zone.

I promptly already began to forget things already by grabbing all my bags and leaving my phone in the car. Yay Lisa! Cue Dad showing up with not only my phone but with a large skinny cappuccino (there's a very specific sentiment to knowing someone knows your coffee order). We then proceeded to spend forever in the slowest moving check-in line in the world (seriously, children were born in the darkness of the line and grew up, only ever knowing the steel cages of the trolleys and intermittent half strides of movement and clickety-clacks of the wheels) wherein we passed the hours by deconstructing and mocking my fellow passengers.

But... my lucky chainsaw! I'm supposed to just leave it behind???

The smile is from delusion. I've managed to forget what I'm actually doing in this line...

Of note in this game was a guy I pointed out because he looked exactly like Zach Galifianakis, saying he'd be ready for the winter we were heading into and another skinny blonde guy wearing glasses who looked a lot like a guy I used to know, but stared at just awkwardly long-enough to confirm it was not him. There was also a family with three or four kids (it was hard to count them when they were constantly in motion) that had managed to work out how three trolleys full of suitcases could also double as a jungle gym. The parents already looked exhausted :/ I said a silent prayer for future Lisa if she ever finds herself in the time of travelling with her children and mused on what a specific freedom there is in endlessly travelling as a 20-something. I mean how strange to think that pretty much exactly a year ago, I was right here heading off to Paris and we were in chapter one of CFOB, and here we are now ready to go to America... I wonder where we'll be standing with bags packed for a year from now?

But for now, let's conquer America!

So boarding passes, goodbyes, departure forms and customs later and I found myself wandering Brisbane aiport looking for gate 81. There were signs showing "gates 70-80" hmm... okay... *walks off in the other direction*... "gates 82-90" ...uhhh, okay, no problem, I probably just missed it *walks back* "78 :) ...79 :) ...80 :D ... ...82 :| >: ( OH WHAT THE FU-" Seriously, 10 minutes till boarding and a non existant gate, awesome start! Just as I was about to ask for some sage wisdom from a subway sandwich maker, I spied the gate lying on the outskirts of the airport and pulled my bag and myself there. As soon as boarding was called, the longest line in the world proceeded to form...

Yeah screw that

So instead of standing in yet another long line, I went wandering off in the nearby shops where I was promptly offered free alcohol! In my books, all good adventures start with the main character getting slightly drunk. And it was baileys on ice! One of my favourite drinks :) And there were two new flavours they were promoting, Orange Truffle and Biscotti. Oh god, my mouth's watering just remembering the deeply biscuity flavour. They have a special deal going on two bottles for Christmas, I hope it's still going when I come back through customs on the 21st since I like Baileys and someone else I kinda think is cool seems to like it too and this stuff tastes like Christmas.

The magic ingredient is the cocaine!

But eventually the line died down and I tossed my now-Baileys-infused body onto the end of it and made my way onto the plane. The best part of this was overhearing someone else in the line go "America, fuck yeah!" hehehe... 

Welcome to window seat 24K, my new home for 13 hours! I sat down and started rearranging my little nest, noting the weird stain on my pillow and subtly swapping it with the pillow next to me (not realising I'd be made to feel like an evil vixen for having done so later in the trip).

Le 24K palace!

And then my compadres for the journey arrived; 24H and 24J... and my face went wide O.o who should it be but *fan fare* the bearded guy from the line! I was shocked and amused by the chances that it should be the one person I noted and kept seeing in all the lines. Then 24H shows up and it's the BLONDE GUY! Seriously, what are the chances!

Howdy internet following of weird-girl's blog!

Turns out 24J was awesome. We hit it off pretty quick somewhere between our mutual reservations about the howling baby infront of us, sharing a scotch or two and discovering a shared ability to banter and mentally joust. We also began to investigate the inflight entertainment and discovered the creepy magic of the seat-to-seat chat function and immediately began to bully each other through an extended word game challenge.

"A vocation for vacations. Summoned by a light... it pertains to both of us..."

"I have no idea, this one makes no sense, are you sure we've mentioned it already?"

"Positive. Okay I'll break it down, first half of the word rhymes with you and describes a hot meat dish all of one consistency, usually eaten in Winter. The second half of the word rhymes with cord and describes a place in a hospital you keep a lot of sick people."

"This is just as bad as you trying to guess jetlag..."

"Jetlag isn't a noun!"

"I didn't say noun, I said thing!"

"Everything's a thing! Quit stalling, you're just annoyed because you embarassingly still can't get this word..."

It was STEWARD, 24J. 

So if you came and found CupFullOfBlank in the end, there is your answer :) and welcome to the blog! It was a sincere pleasure to travel with you as a partner in crime, thanks for making our trip far more fun.

Inflight seat to seat chat; how to passive aggressively alienate your neighboring seats in three easy steps!

After a pretty average lunch and another scotch, a personal critiquing based on lunch choice (24J's remorseful choice of inedible stew) and eating-on-a-plane skills (or rather my lack thereof) and a fierce debate on the brand of scotch we were being served, ending in a monetary bet (just a quick side note that you are still in my debt 24J thanks to Mr. Johnnie Walker) we proceeded to play a new game with the chat function: Fishing. The game works like this; arbitrarily invite random seats to chat to you until you manage to lure one into a conversation. First person to keep a conversation going for three lines each wins! I managed to pull in yet another victory thanks to 13C, some muso named Joel ALSO from the GC going on a road trip with friends in the USA.

So muddled somewhere into my 13 hour flight was hearing the succinct summary of a strangers life told in an american accent, a mediocre thriller movie, snacks, forever night time, music, batman and the bathroom challenge of a window seat as well as stories such as...

"How to steal money from the passengers next to you; a charlatan's guide to airline gambling (aka: the story of how seat 24J came to owe me $2)"

"10 things you can't do on an airplane"

"How to get changed in an airplane bathroom; a restrictive movement injury guide."

All this and more in the next chapter of Lisa's airline adventuring; "Sleepless and vaguely near Seattle"