Departure Gate Snacks

I thought I would post a little something whilst waiting in the departure gate lounge at Bergen airport.

Whenever I travel, I always usually have around a 2-3 hour wait at the airport before going on the plane, and instead of looking at duty free products, I choose to go to the newsagents and buy magazines/newspapers along with the usually food to binge on.

Yet I always fall into the terrible trap of choosing chocolate, or other sweets and accompanied by a cup of coffee. Needless to say after greedily indulging in these snacks and then embarking on a flight, I always regret it and my health suffers along with it.

I don't know why, but even though I have travelled a lot and know how dehydrating a flight is, I seem to still choose these products which do not help me at all on my journey in the sky.

For one, coffee is dehydrating as it is, plus it makes me go to the bathroom much too often than usual - which is a terrible thing to have to endure whilst flying. 

Then there's chocolate, most of my flights are early in the morning or late at night which are both terrible times to be eating sugary snacks, yet I do it regardless and my teeth are always aching after the journey (which I have put down to my high sugar diet, something to work on for the new year perhaps?)

ALAS I am learning! Even if it has taken numerous flights to learn...

So while I am sitting here in the early hours of the morning, I go to my regular before flight stop at the newsagents, and while my nostrils are being filled with the smells of baked delights and I can hear the coffee grinding, I take a stand and choose the following to get me through the flight and the rest of my day: a banana, a ham & pesto sandwhich (filled with capsicum, lettuce and red onion), vitamin water (a bit of a cheat, usually I would just choose regular water but vitamin well is just too good to resist sometimes), and nuts (to snack on for later).

And in all honesty, I feel very awake now and balanced, unlike feeling sluggish like I usually do after having my chocolate and coffee. 

And on that note, I am ready for my trip to Finland :) 

What lies beneath

The sun is shining bright, and the clouds are low beneath us, it looks like a scene from a movie when a person awakes in heaven, completely white and bright with nothing or nobody in sight. The clouds look like a thick blanket. But then as we descend through the clouds it's like we are stuck in suffocating fog. I don't understand how they know how to find their way to the safe terrain, it's so dark and grey. Whereas before we were blinded by the gleaming brightness of the sun, now we have lost our sight in the unknown darkness of the clouds.

Suddenly the city appears, yet there is still little light and the darkness from the grey clouds shows no signs of letting any of the brightness through. It's completely opposite to what I had seen in the clouds above. To the people below in this city they would be completely unaware of the overwhelming clearness above those clouds which are isolating their city from what lies above.

Yet although the greyness is trying to take over the city, it fails to make it dull. I still feel the excitement and beauty waiting to be explored once I take my first footsteps on this new land, for I have arrived in Copenhagen...

When checking out onto a plane, leave your appearance at the departure gate...

In all my years of travel, whether with family or on my own, I never understood how some people manage to still look so good at the arrival destination, especially after 17 hours of flying!

No matter what, if I left the departure gate looking well-groomed with my hair full of healthy waves and my little bit of make-up making me glow and look 'fresh-faced', by the time I made it through arrivals my hair would be oily and messy, neither looking good down nor tied up, and my face would be dry with massive black bags under my eyes, and sometimes even, on really lucky occasions, I might even arrive with a new pimple on my face too.

I read all these articles on beauty and travel in fashion magazines which say to use this moisturiser, or this face-spritz, or this tinted moisturiser, or this face serum, and drink plenty of water, which of course underlines the obvious need to stay hydrated inside and out whilst in a tight air-space. Yet I use these products like the face spritz or the moisturiser and drink plenty of water (which adds the negative of having to go to the toilet more often than usual, making me have to face the exhausted state I now look in the mirror and which gets worse with each dragging hour).

Maybe it's because I fidget too much that my hair gets messy. Maybe it's because I use those heated face towels the air hosts and hostess' give you (which are delightful I might add) that ruins whatever make-up I originally had on. Maybe it's because I stare at the movie screen in the dark for hours on end that my eyes go all red and dry. Maybe it's because I get so exhausted at not being able to sleep comfortably that I continuously run my hands through my hair and sink my face into my hands that makes both my hair and face oily. Maybe I was never meant to have the talent to look good after 17 hours of flying.

But just once, it would be nice to walk through the arrival gates and have the other passengers think "She looks good, how did she manage to stay so well-kept after that long flight. I don't know how she does it!" - just like I think of so many of them who manage to pull it off effortlessly.