it´s just plane fun

I wouldn't be the first person to write about airports and planes and people on planes and people in airports, but I might be one of the few people who really enjoy all of these things. 


Airports are so glamorous with all the smartly dressed air hostesses and pilots strutting around, the shiny duty free shop and of course the big fancy planes landing and taking off. There is such a wide range of human energy in there. People happy to go, happy to be back, sad to go, sad to be back, people rushing, people looking bored, people excited to see a loved one, mortified to say farewell to another. There is just so much going on! There are downsides like delayed flights and expensive food, but over all I always have a fine time at the airport. 

The sparkling perfume bottles at duty free and of course the beautiful
Candice Swanepoel in a Versace ad. 

A DILF at EZE airport in Argentina

A very cute Chinese girl who kept chatting to me.  COULDN'T UNDERSTAND A WORD! Not so much for her little sister who cried pretty much the entire way and whose cry sounded like a wounded pterodactyl (didn't know it was spelt like that till today) 

My most recent flight was back home to South Africa after being away for a whole year. I was incredibly excited to be going home and celebrated at the airport by drinking overpriced beer. I find flying drunk a must for long flights. 
I love the mini-ness of the food and drinks on the plane. I get to feel like a giant for a few hours. Even more so, I love the in flight movies. I was very lucky that the in flight entertainment contained THREE Ryan Gosling movies which kept me quite content throughout the flight, although it did make me want to join the mile high club on my own after that Crazy Stupid Love scene where he takes his top off.

The only thing that has put me off flying in the past year was caused by watching a series called Banged Up Abroad. A show about people´s experiences being locked up in a prison in another country. For the most part they are there because they got caught smuggling drugs that they had agreed to carry. In some cases someone else has put drugs in their bags without them knowing. It´s a great show, but really made me paranoid that someone was going to put something in my bag. 


I landed in Johannesburg, picked up my bags and within about 10 seconds of collecting them a customs official passed a crowd of people and walked straight up to me. In a split second a million thoughts when through my mind.
" I am being framed. This is a set up. Someone has put something in my bag and told the officials to keep an eye out for the girl with the pink bag."
He started asking me questions and I lost it. I started to sweat, couldn't talk properly, and worst of all I needed a poo. 


He asked me to go into a room with him and of course, I did. I non nonchalantly stood there while he searched my bags.I couldn't ask if I could go to the toilet because I figured they would probably think I had something up my bum, so I stood there doing the ´I need a poo´ bop while they completed the search. Of course there was nothing to be found so he wished me well and said goodbye. Turns out JHB is pretty tight on their checks and check every second person (I should have known when the most innocent looking 100 year old man got pulled aside) but my paranoia totally got to me. As a result, I have decided never to watch Banged Up Abroad again. 


I eventually got to Cape Town and my first day back home after a year couldn't have been better...