Flying

This list was inspired by this post by Heidi over at 101 Cookbooks. Heidi is scarily organised for travelling, she even prepares whole meals for the plane ride! I can't believe that! What kind of a Wonder Woman is this?

I didn't even know you could bring your own food on-board planes. Perhaps it's different in the US, or maybe I've been put off by all those Airport TV shows where misty-eyed grandmothers from Asia are pulled up by Customs for filling their suitcases with home-dried shrimp and other packets of foreign 'unmentionables' they just couldn't travel without.

Here's my most common travelling situation:

• Food-wise, it's not pretty. From the shitty Gloria Jeans coffee to the $11 greasy-yet-strangely-dry ham and cheese croissant (if you've ever wondered if something could be greasy and dry simultaneously, it can), it's a terrible time, and that's even before you've stepped on the plane.

• Ever since I got CHEAP! tattooed in Helvetica across my forehead, it's rare that I get to recline in the plush comfort of Qantas' Byron Bay cookies and iced G&T's (unless mum is paying, thanks mum) Those pre-heated, foil-covered food packs they hand out for dinner give off the worst stench. Oddly, It's exactly the same smell as my boarding school dining hall which reeked of onion and powdered eggs, no matter what they were cooking that day. The smell would soak into the wool of our school jumpers and would stay there into the afternoon until you doused it in perfume. What I wouldn't do to be organised enough to make dumplings for the plane! Neatly tucked into a collapsible silicone lunchbox! WITH SAUCE! A girl can dream that her future self will be dumpling-travel organised can't she?
• To make matters worse, on top of all the congealed eggs and limp lettuce, is a niggling fear of flying that I try to ignore, yet which always manages to settle itself right in the middle of my chest whenever the plane jolts. My friend Camilla loves turbulence. "It's like a riding a rollercoaster!" she squealed mid-way to Vietnam, her face spread with a wide, manic smile. "A ROLLERCOASTER THAT ISN'T ATTACHED TO ANYTHING, MILL! NOTHING! THIN AIR!" I barked back, sucking on the straw of my bloody mary from a can.

Thanks for the tips Heidi, travel goddess. I bow at your feet.