So You Want To Be A Stewardess

Can't beat the wanderlust

Beyond the tedious grooming and endless toilet-cleaning, what makes this job all worth it is of course, the travelling. The high of setting foot in a different city every few days is intoxicating. All your senses are constantly stimulated - on any given Monday, I could be ogling sexy bikes on my walk past the Ducati Paris shop, en route to the Arc de Triomphe. By Friday, I might be in Seoul, having snake for dinner.

Every city taught me something new. No matter how small it was, I was delighted to learn it.

In Sydney, I learned that one could dedicate park benches to the dead. What a great concept! I discovered this on a distracted dash through Hyde Park. I'd woken up in a fright in the hotel, not knowing where I was, what date it was, even who I was. That's what frequent time zone jumping does to you.

When I finally got my legs to work, I'd bolted out to gulp down some fresh air. Hurtling through the greenery, I caught sight of an ordinary-looking park bench, with a small, elegant brass nameplate affixed. Mary McDougall, it announced. I was intrigued. The rest of the inscription read like a headstone. She sounded lovely and non-judgmental, so I sat down and whispered my secrets to her. Mary turned out to be a great listener, with a perfectly calming presence. It felt just right telling a dead stranger my fears.

I started to notice death, or rather life, more.

In Paris, I had my first experience of the common phrase 'so happy I could die'. The moment was a surprising one: I was all alone, sitting on an open top double decker bus, going around the city. I remembered the wind whipping through my hair, slapping me, making sure I was awake. It was so fiercely cold that I laughed out loud, feeling not just awake, but very much alive.

My mind went still with a sudden clarity. If I died now, I really wouldn't mind. I realise it sounds morbid, but it's not like I wanted to jump off the bus. I was just 100% content.

It wasn't all deep, obviously.

In Johannesburg, I learned what a giraffe's tongue felt like - wet sandpaper. Also, a giraffe's lick on your palm is the most ticklish sensation in the world.

I tasted mulled wine for the first time in a Christmas market in Zurich. I went to a Christmas market for the first time in Zurich.

In Seoul, I learned that spirits were sold in the supermarket in plastic bottles, exactly like mineral water bottles. I bought a 1.5L bottle of what I thought was water - it was that cheap - took a big thirsty swig, and spluttered soju all over myself. That was a rare occasion where I could not finish my drink and had to leave it behind when I checked out. The memory of abandoning all that soju still haunts me.

Eventually I learned that my favourite activity was simply walking, preferably outdoors. My favourite cities were all the highly walkable ones, like New York, Taipei, Paris, Hongkong. You could walk till you dropped, and there would still be infinity left to be explored.

My absolute favourite city was New York. To me, it's the city of eternal scaffolding - there is just so much always happening. I loved its easy walkability, with numbered streets in running order. But I suspect a large part of why I loved it so much was because I was often high, delirious from fatigue.

Every time we pulled into New York, it was daytime, and my body clock was completely jumbled from flying through Singapore and Frankfurt. All I wanted to do was sleep, but if I succumbed, I would be wide awake at night, which was much worse. So I would walk for hours. It didn't matter where I went. One time I ended up at the UN Headquarters. Another time, Magnolia Bakery. I would set off without any destination, so long I stayed awake. 

Keeping awake was like trying to walk underwater. Things took on a surreal quality not just physically but mentally. Central Park was home to skating rinks that I believed could easily be underground spaceship hangars. Ongoing quarrels, with lovers back home, lost their urgency. Even my self-loathing took a side step as the mind attempted to stay sane. Reality became fragmented, and I loved it. 

And when the sun finally went down and the moon rose, I would stagger through the hotel entrance, victorious. Weighed under by my overloaded senses, so overwhelmed they had closed shop, I relished that final collapse onto my bed, having at last earned the right to sleep like the dead.