Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo.

Al Gore

Another stop, Dubai now, for what was meant to be an hour and a half but I have a sneaking suspicion it has been, and will be, longer than that.

I’m in another departure lounge. I don’t quite understand the use of the word lounge in this context. “Lounge” conjures up all sorts of images, none of which are even remotely like the thing I am sitting in.  It is not that this departure “lounge” is any worse than others I have been trapped in. They’re all pretty much the same. Cheap, heavy-duty carpet with mind-blogging patterns. Vinyl bench seats in a colour scheme which clashes beautifully with the mind-boggling carpet. Big, empty white walls. Big, nasty fluro lights. That constant beep-beep, beep-beep as they recheck boarding passes and passports.

This particular departure lounge is spinning. It could be the carpet. Or the lights. Or the fact I haven’t slept in 24 hours. Probably some sort of combination of the three. The carpets makes 3D shapes which jump into my face whenever I look down.

I should stop looking down.

I feel disgusting but at least I smell nice.

Upon passing through security I was greeted by the bright lights and empty promises of the Duty Free stores. The United Arab Emirates Dirham makes everything look expensive. The US Dollar makes everything look affordable. I wasn’t fooled; Australian Dollars will get you nowhere. So I browsed and attempted to keep that nonchalant I-could-afford-it-if-I-wanted-it expression plastered on my face. I tried to not look guilty every time I passed a security guard. Not that I had anything to feel guilty about – except, possibly, the fact that there was no way in the world I was actually going to buy anything or shoplift anything for that matter. That feeling of guilt for not actually doing anything wrong always happens when I have to show my bag to the security guy at the door of the store or when I walk past a cop … It’s just a thing I think.

Anyway, I tried on some Chanel perfume because Keira Knightley strikes me as a really lovely person and someone I think I could be great friends with one day. (OK, OK, I know – I just completely sucked in to celebrity branding. Gross.) I put on the perfume with my nonchalant expression.

The girl with the nonchalant expression decided she didn’t want the perfume.

The girl within the girl with the nonchalant expression really, really did want it …

But you can’t just buy something so extravagant before your adventure / international experience / holiday even begins, can you? Plus, you know, I am going to Paris so there’s that. Yeah.  Paris.

Meanwhile, back in the departure lounge …

A man in a fluro vest (so he must be official and know what is going on) just made everyone seated in rows 1 to 21 stand, expectantly, to board the bus which will take us to the plane (finally).

So I stood. And waited.

He was wrong.

Despite the fluro vest.

Everyone in seated rows 1 to 21 could sit down again.

Most of them didn’t want to.

I can understand that.

What I don’t understand is why this part of the airport even exists. We got off the plane. Went through security. I wandered around the Duty Free stores. I tried on expensive perfume. Then I had to show my boarding pass, again, and passport, again, and wait in this thing they call a lounge which is more like a holding pen. Or the setting for some bizarre psychology experiment. Stand up. Sit down. Beep-beep. There are no bathrooms here. No water. Not even enough places to sit. Just crazy carpet. And vinyl seats.

And a lonely girl wearing Chanel perfume she cannot really afford.

Roll on Heathrow …