Take Flight

Minnie: that's me. Nicknamed this when I failed to pronounce my own name properly whilst learning to talk in the early years of life. 'L' no longer appeared in the name Emily and was somehow replaced with an 'N' giving myself the new name 'Eminy' which further progressed to my parents dropping the 'E' and running with the nickname 'Minnie'. Not complicated at all. I was indeed also mini at the time... Seemed to have grown out of that now, first in the upward manner and now (to my disgrace) in the outward manner.

Memoir: an account of the personal experiences of the author. An autobiography tells the story OF a life while a memoir tells a story FROM a life.

So here we have the start of Minnie Memoirs. Some will be mini and some not so mini. I plan to keep them like how a girls skirt should be, long enough to be decent but short enough to hold the interest ;)

My story this year began with adventure in my own backyard, beautiful New Zealand. White water rafting at the base of the southern alps, running off cliffs while hang gliding in Queenstown, Ice hiking on Fox Glacier, sailing in Abel Tasman, back flips out of aeroplanes while skydiving in Taupo and kayaking in coromandel. I followed this up with two months of a slightly slower pace to spend time with my friends and family and also to keep up the skill of my much loved trade as a hairdresser. 

It is now though, I find myself back on the large metal bird, winging my way from middle earth to the Middle East.

Oh the gloriousness and hideousness of this ability to fly around the world. 

It really is amazing, you are sitting in a seat tens of thousands of feet in the sky in a metal tube that weighs hundreds of thousands in tonnes and as it flys you around the globe you eat, go to the bathroom, watch movies, read, sleep, drink wine and eat cheese and crackers for goodness sake and can even get on the internet if you so desired! Sometimes you even make friends with the person you have been blessed to sit by!

Awesome.

The other hand is, after queuing, going through security screening and waiting you finally get to board this seemingly small metal tube which you have 14 hours to be inside of with no way out. Claustrophobia anyone? Find your allocated seat. As you sit there and watch the numerous characters walk down the isle fear begins to leak into every part of your being of what you may end up sitting, eating and sleeping by for the next half a day. Someone morbidly obese who by default is half sitting on you? A screaming child? A pooing child? Or worse - both? An arrogant young man with a terrible accent who wants the whole plane to hear his views on everything in the whole wide world, literally not enough airtime for all he has to say. Someone with bad body odour? A snorer? Yes, these are real life examples.

As you sit there it is like watching a circus. These clowns come on, juggling their luggage and try to put these large items in the over head lockers, these items will fit but people seem to enjoy the challenge of trying to insert them on the strangest angles. It's like that toy we had as kids where you had to put the shape in the correct hole. Watching these people is like watching a child try to put a square in the square hole but on the wrong angle, I feel like the frustrated adult watching on. Just how that adult wants to put that square in the hole, I just want to get up and put that bag in the locker on an angle that will get that dang thing in there! It's not rocket science. Likewise, the amount of people who can't seem to see there is NO ROOM and that bag WILL NOT fit - find another locker, magical space is not going to appear if you keep pushing, it is not Mary Poppins bag. You have a square, that is a circle = not going to fit.

That's my rant over. It really is glorious and I will continue to take part in this miracle of flight as it takes me to explore more of this incredible planet we live on. I am in love with the whole wide world and I want to see it all. 

Next stop - Abu Dhabi doo!!!!