Leaving on a Jet plane...

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... Don't know when I'll be back again.

This blog is very long... I'm sure they wont all be this long...

Day 0.

Most of this written on the plane and typed up later...
Oh my god! I can't believe how mice this airline is! So spacious and have my perfect seat - right at the back, no one to kick my chair, the token screaming kid all the way at the front! No one next to me! Technology!! Pillows and WELL nice red blankets (I choose to steal the pillow and not the blanket at the end of the journey as I already have a blanket... which, now I'm here, I'm thikning I'm probably not going to need for quite a while).
How do I feel? In disbelief. Four years it's taken me to get here. From thinking about going, to actuaklly sitting on the plane four years later.
This is, make no mistake, the adventure of MYYYYYY lifetime (similarly, next week is MYYYYYY birthday Jennifer Farmer :-)).
MY ADVENTURE.
I'm tearful. Leaving it all behind. Cherished friendships. Can't believe it.
After everything - all the stress, the men, the mates, the nights, the moves, the working, the quitting, everything... it's finally here.
This really is MY time.
Exhilarating and now I AM excited.
Thanks to all my amazing friends and family who have been involved in this in some way. Without them, I'd still be at Anglia Ruskin... not going... no strength.
My friends have helped make me me.
SHIT!!! I'm on a plane which is about to fly to Mumbai.
I'm alone, but not sad. MY adventure...
I read a text from Blake which made me cry as I couldn't reply then and there. I'm not sure why, but at the time it meant leaving something unfinished behind and that was a dark moment for me. I also couldn't ring a couple of people as the battery had ran out - Dammit! This was it - alone now - my adventure was here in stark reality. Sitting on the plane, it about to take off... alone.
However, this plane journey couldn't have been more perfect for me - window seat, 20+ films, empty seat next to me to put feet up on and try to sleep.
The films helped take my mind of things. How much I will miss everyone felt like I was grieving. The death car, hey Miss Templar ;-)

The last I saw of my England home was a night-time London through freezing snow clouds. I cried quite a lot, wondering when I'd see it and my loved ones again. Thinking particularly of Blake as I hadn't replied to his lovely message... and of course, thinking of Aidan (I'm going to try and not mention him again).
How come I was the only person I could see on the plane with my nose to the window? No one else seems as excited as me!

Watched the film Kick-Ass, which took my mind off everything as I was pretty tearful up until that point. Reflecting, leaving, adventuring.
It IS a big step and I wish it felt like th right time. Still surprising that I'm actually on the plane!
Alt: 37,000 feet/11277 Metres
Ground Speed: 592 MPH
Air Temperature: -61 degrees C
I worked it out as around 4538 miles altogether. Around 9 hours.
I slept for 4 of those and not knowing exactly what the time was as my battery had died, the plane time was all cocked-up and we left late, I was a bit disoriented.
I woke up to a few people, for quite innocent reasons, standing quite nearby me and watching me. This pissed me off instantly! Maybe this was a tiny warning to me to chill out and that people do watch... especially a dreaded hippy idiot like myself :-)
As the coast of India appeared underneath the plane, I am happy to be arriving in India. A plane journey always sorts me out. My nerves had gone and I wasn't crying anymore at all.
From the experience of the flight, the people on it and a couple of people I'd spoken to on the plane, I knew it'd be nice when I got there.

I feel like I'm almost starting anew. Like, I could be anyone I wanted to be... although the only person I want to be is me. Here, I hope I can help myself get out of bad habits, repetetive thought patterns, tiny paranoia and I can make myself feel loved all by myself... I hope.

Next to Mumbai airport are lots of 'slum' homes - corrugated iron, ripped tarps, little kids, barbed wire on top of the walls of the airport, presumably to keep the 'slum' dwellers out, washing drying...
The airport equipement is left very untidy - an accident risk - Don't think they know what a 'risk assessment' is here... GOOD!!!!!
Getting off the plane is so, so hot. At first I think it's probably due to the plane's engine running for so long... how wrong could I be?! This is the temperature!

Our flight gets in late so although we follow directions and get on the very old, very hot bus like they tell us (there's no arguing here - even though someone's shouting at the driver to hurry up), we turn up at the domestic flight terminal and they wont let us (20 or so people) get on the connecting flight! Shouting and arguing makes no difference - we've all been booked onto another flight. So... I'm getting picked up at Goa! Need to get in touch with the Animal centre ASAP otherwise the driver might leave without me! Phone out of battery, internet at the airport takes AGES to figure out but then luckily I connect and a nice lady called Maria (who's with her husband on the way to their apartment in Goa) lets me use her phone to call Tanja at the centre who rings her driver and asks him to wait. Luckily the stress disappears pretty quickly as they allow smoking in certain rooms in the airport.
I can't imagine how i would have felt if I was alone and all those other people weren't in the same boat! So tired, my brain's not thinking properly.
Now I know what previous tourists to India of my friends were warning me about... everything's a hassle. The security there even took all my lights out of my hand luggae... except my zippo which was safely hidden in my camera bag - hehehe.

Finally, we land in Goa - so green - so hot.
Kundan the driver is standing outside the airport with a piece of paper with my name on it. How glad am I to see him.
We drive for nearly two hours through scenery, traffic, sea views, big boats, cows, dogs, mopeds and no helmets, rice/sweet potato fields, fires by the side of the road...

The smell of the land reminds me of Mombasa in Kenya - possibly the sea air?
I arrive at the hotel!
Pool, bar, Mr Lucky the waiter, Simon the porter, Power the receptionist (Parvar), helpful, friendly and excellent room with AC and en-suite.
I realise I hve too many things with me but I'll soon find out what to get rid of.
I unpack and go to the bar to drink the local 'fenny' spirit which is horrible and drunk with Limca (sort of like 7up) and get really quite drunk whilst talking to a Portuguese man called Jo about samba and music.
It's so humid and hot here, even at night the AC is very welcome!

This is MY adventure... and it's started good and proper :-)

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