Leaving On A Jet Plane

Well my 2009 European escapade got off to a less than auspicious beginning the minute I hit Tullamarine. I waited for close to an hour at the Qantas check in only to be served by a young lady called umm.. I think it was Ann or Veronica or.. oh I don't know, let's just call her Fuck Face. So Fuck Face tells me that my baggage is over the limit. Admittedly it was tipping the scales at the 37kg mark when there was a maximum of 25kg allowed and my "but I'm only 60kg personally so surely it all balances out" argument wasn't winning me any friends.

I was told I would have to lose some luggage weight. Looking for a win-win solution, I asked if I could pay an excess baggage fee and simply put 12kg into another bag. Fuck Face was all too happy to tell me that would cost me $900. I asked for some other solutions - could I send the other items separately by mail? No post office. Put them in storage? Not long term. I'd like to think that these were both perfectly acceptable questions to ask but my friend at the check in counter (who was quickly becoming the love of my life) looked at me as if I had suggested sprinkling magic pixie dust on them and thinking happy thoughts so that they could fly to Amsterdam by themselves. She said the only solution was for me to throw out 12kg of luggage.

Now those of you who know me probably know that I'm not one to give up easily, particularly to somebody with an unpleasant name such as Fuck Face so I had a good hard think. I threw out a bottle of shampoo which I hoped came to 12kg but in reality was about a twelfth of that. I then did some rethinking. And it came to me - makeover time! I went from wearing my tasteful "it's 33 degrees" clothing to putting on any item of clothing in my suitcase that carried a bit of weight. I was so layered up you could have stabbed me with a sword and I would have thought you were poking me with your finger.

Then came step two of my plan - filling the pockets. I transferred the remaining weight into my many pockets and cabin luggage. I went back to the check in desk but unfortunately Fuck Face has decided to take an early minute and had already gone home. Luckily the pink mafia were out in force and her replacement was all too willing to help me with my scheme to get a ridiculous amount of weight on board. He suggested that when I pass through customs, I take everything out of my cabin luggage bag and put it into separate buckets so they didn't know who it belonged to. Lo and behold - I managed to get through 16kg of cabin luggage. Nick Verso 1 Fuck Face 0.

The flight was pretty uneventful. I played my usual game in the departure lounge of working out which characters from Lost we would be if our plane were to crash somewhere in the Pacific and land on a tropical island. As usual, there was no Jack, a lot of Locks and I ended up as Kate.

I was a little disappointed I must say with the in flight entertainment. I had made an incorrect choice with my in flight reading by choosing the book Hold Tight by Harlan Coben. Apparently its an international bestseller which proves society is in deeper trouble than we think. Imagine if Jackie Collins went up to John Grisham at a cocktail party and said "we should write a little something about the kids of today. I'll handle the sub-standard prose and ridiculous characterisation if you come up with a contrived plot and cheesy dialogue". If that unholy alliance were to take place, Hold Tight would be the result. If you're lucky I'll read you some passages a little later.

So with nothing to read and Beverly HIlls Chihuahua being the promoted in flight movie, I decided to make good use of those Stilnox tablets. I was a little concerned that my observation that the woman on the plane next to me was working her way through a Virginia Andrews novel (working being the correct verb because you sure as hell can't read them) might result in some subconscious Stilnox side effects such as sleep crime and sexual nightmares of the incest variety but luckily this wasn't the case. I even checked with the woman next to me on landing. Apparently she thought I murmured "Grandma! No!" while twitching at one point but it might have just been gas.

Berlin is indeed cold but beautiful in its icy demeanor. The streets are cloaked in a rich mist and in the morning the streets are sprinkled with snow that melts as the sun's rays beam down upon it. I made two main observations in my first 5 minutes though.

One - there was a large packing post office at Berlin airport so that you could send additional items if your luggage is too heavy and you couldn't fit certain items inside. There was also a storage area. Just saying, Fuck Face.

Two - judging from the faces of many of Germany's fraulein, I have some news that will certainly bring some joy to my third grade emergency teacher. Apparently bright primary eye shadow is back in a big way. Twice in a lifetime, Mrs Maguire!

Stay tuned for news from Berlin including photos of Tilda "why so scary" Swinton.