I’m sitting in the bar on the upper deck of an Emirates A380 rumbling through turbulent skies somewhere between the southern tip of India and Dubai. As I sip on a Negroni, a stewardess stands behind a u-shaped art deco-style bar busily mixing drinks. The soundtrack consists of conversations about travel and places to visit punctuated by the regular rattle of shaken ice and the psst and crack of carefully opened canned tonic water. A live football game plays on a large screen as passengers mill around in matching Emeriates-issues pyjamas. The whole scene is both incredibly elegant yet slightly comical…. think prison inmates in a private jet eating olives and sipping wine.
I’m writing this sitting at my own bar table and the whole thing is quite surreal. The fact that I’m even sitting in a bar at 35,000 feet is not lost on me and the novelty really makes me smile. I’ve flown business class before, but this is really a next level experience that feels far more first class than the usual business. I’m accustomed to ordering a “red wine” on planes, but doing so here is a very different experience. The stewardess brought over 2 bottles (a French and Italian wine) to taste and decide which one I preferred. Quite frankly this is all very dangerous. I’m not a snob… but… it may be hard to go back to drinking small plastic bottles of Australian ‘Yellowtail’ in plastic cups after this… God help me.
We’re about 3 hours out of Dubai where I’ll board a second flight bound for London. It’s been 13 years since I visited Europe and my memories of my last trip to Italy and the UK feel surreal and dreamlike. Memories of European trips seem almost overwritten by numerous, more recent trips to Asia and the US since then. The truth is, I’m still in love with Europe… particularly Italy and I have been since I lived in Perugia and studied Italian at the L’universita per Stranieri (University for Foreigners) on an exchange program in 2003. I’m so excited to return that it hasn’t quite hit me yet. Just thinking about it makes me smile uncongttrollably to the point where my fellow pyjama-clad bar patrons may stare at me and wonder why I’m so damn happy.
Once I land in London, II’ll spend the week at a conference before Jen flys over to join me. Once she arrives we’ll do a weekend in Paris and then go on to Florence and Rome.
I’ve never been to France but, like every famous European city, it already feels familiar yet, at the same time, strangely exotic. This trip will be one of romantic cliches, Instagramable famous landmarks, a degustation of French and Italian cuisine and a brief immersion into another world. Europe is a world that is not only so geographically distanced from Australia but also a one of a culture so deep it’s simply hard to fathom. Australia has a deep and ancient indigenous history but we certainly aren’t accustomed to being surrounded by buildings and landmarks dating back many hundreds of years.
Having not written any travel articles or blogs for some time, I’m suddenly feeling creative and inspired. As always, it takes travel to force you into a mindset where you start to see the world anew again and suddenly become present. I’m far more present than I’ve been for some years as this experience is already uncluttering my lens of familiar perception… and I haven’t even touched down in Dubai. Yet, my autopilot mode of processing familiar surroundings without awareness or consideration is dissolving and suddenly everything feels crisp, vivid and new.
Like a child coming into the world, I feel both overwhelmed but incredibly aware and ready to absorb new and ancient surroundings and experiences.
I’m coming back Europe. It’s been a while but I already know that you’re going to blow my mind, open my senses and drag into a permanent state of awe all over again and, quite frankly, I can’t wait.