2024 Epic Elbe Adventure

There is just no denying the fact that it is a LONG way from Australia to Europe. For most of us that means being crammed inside a flying metal sarcophagus for an excruciating number of hours.

This morning I staggered out of my room at the Comfort Hotel at Copenhagen and began the mind numbing journey home. Since I was flying on a Singapore Airlines Flight, it meant that I would first be flying from Copenhagen to Singapore, then completing the journey with another flight from Singapore to Melbourne.

Since I had only had about three hours sleep in the hotel, I was stupid enough to think that sheer exhaustion would enable me to spend at least some of the 13 hour flight to Singapore asleep. Unfortunately sleep and I were never united during the entire flight.

As I squeezed myself into the tiny space that was going to be my prison for those thirteen hours, I wondered how I would face the twin challenges of avoiding growing a couple of DVTs during the flight as well as trying to eat my meals without covering the front of my clean shirt with sloppy airline goulash, all while my body was cramped into a space about the size of a small sock drawer. I succeeded at the first challenge but failed miserably at the second one.

After jamming myself against the wall of the plane with the aid of my pillow and blanket, I tried to pass at least some of the time by watching several movies. Although I did watch at least three movies, for the life of me I cannot remember any of them. That was 6 hours of my life wasted.

I do recall that I spent an unknown number of hours watching a tiny animated plane slowly crawl across a succession of countries I had never heard of. I guess with all the conflicts breaking out all over the globe, it is little wonder that the airlines must have more and more difficulty in finding a route that does not pass over at least one active shooting zone. That explains why the route of the plane looked like the trail left behind by a drunken snail.

I think I spent the final few hours in some sort of zombie like twilight zone, before the pilot finally uttered those beautiful words that we were "descending to Singapore". About thirty minutes later I was leaving the plane and immediately impacted by the furnace like heat and humidity of the equatorial city.

Since I had around three hours to kill before getting aboard the next plane, I went in search of a place to sit in some degree of comfort. I was relieved to see that the Smart Tags I had hidden in my luggage, reported that my cargo luggage had also safely followed me this far.

Only one more 7 hour flight to go !Læs mere