White.

White. I stare out the window. White nothingness. Limbo. How fitting. I feel torn, torn between a place 9200 km and many hours away and the place 3 km below me. I am going home to my family and at the some time I am leaving family. People as close to me as my own blood. Don't know when I'll see them again, or even if. Turbulence, we jump up and down, fall, I feel weightless for a fraction of a second. Then the white becomes shades and layers and we hit the blue. Above the clouds the sky is always blue. I look down, for a moment my heart skips; a last glance at the place I don't know if I'll see again. But no, it is behind me, this is just some random river in that huge country. "Drinks Madam?" the guy with the stripy tie asks as he hands me the little bag of snacks. 'A big fucking bottle of vodka' I want to say, or a long island to remember the good times, but no, can't get drunk now. I am alone, I have to take care of myself. "Coke with ice please." My grand adventure is over. Three and a half week seemed an enternity when I bought the ticket, I even though it might be too long. It went so fast, I was never bored, it was not what I had expected, but god, I loved it. Underneath me the sea of white spun sugar, the woman beside me sipping wine, all wrapped up in blankets. Thank god for the empty seat between us. I turn on my iPod, there is a song I want to listen to, Photograph by Nickelback. I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor. It's hard to say it, time to say it. Goodbye, goodbye. At least that is what I think he is saying. It is time to say goodbye, both to Flekke and to Hong Kong. But not yet, there is still words to put down on this paper, I'll say my goodbyes before flight KL888 Monday morning 19 of June lands in Amsterdam, but not yet. There are some final goodbyes to say, Hong Kong won't be the same next time I come. And the stripy tie comes and gives me one of those nice, wet, warm napkins. Amazing how refreshed you feel after one of those. Metallica and the San Francisco orchestra in my ears : the light at the end of your tunnel is just a freak train coming your way. I just love the S &M album, the mix of sounds is wonderful. This is just a freak train, not the end, I'll be back, I'll see them again. And until then there is always e-mail, msn and skype, even good old snailmail. Jeff Becks version of Ain't no sunshine when she is gone comes on and I can't help but hope that someone is feeling that way about me. It would be nice to be missed about as much as I miss people right now, but I guess everybody wants to be missed every once in a while. We have been flying for about an hour. Turn the page, by Metallica (yes, I have a lot by them) a song about fame, and the first verse is about traveling. I listen to the engine moan. Get an iPod man. I see a pale slice of moon against the blue backdrop. And stripy guy comes with lunch. I study my nails as he makes his way down the aisle. They are a bit too long for everyday use and way too long for the farmlife I am going back to. They'll break within five minutes. Need to cut them when I get home. And he is here.

They feed you weird stuff on a plane. Norwegian salmon (even Wellcome have Norwegian Salmon, yay.) Chicken with fried rice, cake and cheese and crackers. I am waiting for coffee to have with my cheese. I look out and see the Himalayas poke trough the clouds. I am guessing that big bugger is Everest or K2 or something like that, I have no clue, they all look the same from above. For the last hour I have been trying to figure if it is too cold and I should put on my sweater. After the lady next to me spilled water all over my leg I decided it is. My sweater goes on as soon as they take my tray away. She finished her second bottle of wine, red this time. Fair enough the bottles are small, but we have been traveling for less than two hours. If she keeps this up we will have an interesting flight. She is an Asian, and we all know Asians and alcohol :P Yay, coffee's here. I put creamer and sugar into the coffee. I'll need the sugar kick. Haven't had cheese and crackers since Christmas. It reminds me of my mom, she loves it. I still see random mountains, but they are not poking though the clouds, the clouds are thinning out. I sit back and enjoy my coffee and stripy comes to take my tray away. I think I like Dragon Air food better, do they fly to Europe? Stripy gives me other cup of coffee and I am offered various other drinks. Should I have Baileys? "Just coffee, please" Noon is to early to drink, even if it only Baileys. and if I start drowning my feelings in alcohol now, I might not stop until I am on the plane to Boston. And I don't have the money or the will to fuck up my body that badly. The waterpipe in my suitcase is bad enough. I wonder how I am going to explain that one to my parents. I can't tell them I smoke, not now, I can't disappoint them that much, not with things going the way they are right now. But there is never a good time to tell them either, the thing I fear the most in the world is the disappointed look in their eyes. I knew I was doing something that would bring that look to their faces when I started smoking and I'll take it when it comes, but that does not mean I look forward to it. I think starting smoking was the worst thing I have ever done in their eyes. But as I said I'll take that look when it comes.

I played a round of music quiz on the ipod, 6 out of 10, not good enough. Outside it is white again, Stripy just took my empty cup. Sehnsucht by Rammstein. I close my eyes and remember spinning practice in the college. And photograph comes again, yay for shuffle. And then Devil's dance by Metallica, can't get much better. When the songs are done I get up and go to the toilet. I hate plane lavatories, they are too small. I think I know how hens feel. I take out the book the little SAAS gave me and read a bit. I am completely lost when it comes to time. I don't know how long we have been flying, what time it is or where we are. And they are showing a movie and not the useful screen. After reading a bit more I look out and all I see is dry dirt. I know where we are now, Gobi. I have never seen a desert before. We cross over civilization along a river, what makes people come to places like this I wonder. I study the lanskape, it is so amazing, strange and foreign. And stripy gives me more coke and as the clouds block my veiw. The song Det handler om å leve comes on, a song my mom wants to have in her funeral. Øyene bare ser at rett er rett og feil er feil kan jeg ikke si noe mer. For jeg snakker om å leve, jeg snakker om å gi, jeg snakker om å elske, jeg snakker om å se, jeg snakker om å synge så høyt som man vil, jeg snakker om å gå til jeg for til det jeg vil. (the eyes only see that right is right and wrong is wrong, I can say. Becasue I talk about living, I talk about giving, I talk about loving, I talk about seeing, I talk about singing as loud as you want, I talk about going on untill I achive what I want. Outside it is all white again, and I go back to my book. Well over an hour later it is still dessert or dry dirt with green around the rivers. I wish they could turn on inflight screen again. The movie just ended so I guess they will. I turn on the inflight radio. We're flying over an hilly area, leaving China behind. Only time by Enya comes. Now I am truly inbetween, 5200 km to come home and 4000 to go back. Will I ever go back?

Half waytrough my plane ride and not much new, I am halfway trough the book as well. I wonder what will come first the end of the book or Amsterdam. Later, I have lost track of time again, they feed us noodles. We're flying over flat farm land, aproaching the Ural mountains, soon I'll be in Europe again. This was my first trip outside Europe. The sun is warming my arm. If it is one thing I have missed over the last year this is it. I have about a 100 pages to go in the book, don't know about the time though. There is a lot more forest now and less farmland. We're flying over Moscov and St. Petersburg. I don't know why.

And as we reach what I think is the Baltic sea I finish the book. I don't know what to say yet, it is too recent. Only thing I know is that whenever someone gives me a book to read I try to figure why they have given me the book, what they want to tell me. That is something Bukowski trained me to do, he would give me a book and say "figure out which of these characters I identify myself with and why."I can't really belive that I won't have him around to give me mindgames and puzzels to solve. I feel strange, lost and alone. The fact that I don't what country we're flying over adds to the feeling. These hours have gone fast. And almost everything I have been thinking have been written down here. I get the ipod, the constant moan from the engines nagging me and a Metallica song playing in my head just a freak train comming your way. The inflight info screen comes on and we're over Swedish sea. Less than 1000km before Amsterdam. I write without taking my eyes of the screen, a very usefull skill. I am writing by hand by the way. I plan to type this up when I get home, which is in another 30 hours. I could have been home 2 hours ago if it hadn't been for KLM fucking up my ticket. Instead I have been awake for 15 hours, on little sleep and there is at least 10 more to go before I can sleep. The last few days have been long days and little sleep. But that was what I wanted and needed. Travel that takes a lot of time seems to suit me, these are the times I can pull all nighters. Stripy comes with more food and strangely enough I am hungry.

By the time he is here to take my food away I am almost done with the sudoku that came with the food and I finish it seconds later. One thing I like about sudoku is the way it helps you stop thinking and settle in a well rehearshed pattern. Sudoku is not difficult anymore, it is just a matter of patience and following pattern, but sometimes, like after an 11 hour flight, loosing yourself in the pattern is what you need. There is half an hour to go. I got a beautiful veiw, Colobus clouds bathing in the early afternoon sun. And we begin our decent. The clouds come towards me, I wait for them to engulf us again. Limbo, nothingness, not heaven nor hell, the place non-belivers are sendt. Am I good? Trapped in a state of not knowing what is home, not belonging anywhere? Is this where I belong, on a plane between people I call family, in this white nothingness? Then we're out, that wasn't limbo, just a tiny cloud, there is more to come. I pack down everything except for my notebook and pen. Music, book, everything. I can feel the pressure in my ears, it does not seem like this is going to be one of those painful landings, but we still git 17 minutes to go so who knows? I enjoythe veiw for a while, so flat and helpless and I agree with Knut Nærum: a country that build itself 10 meters below sea level askes for trouble. And then the seatbelt sign comes on. There is Amsterdam. Not enough clouds, no real Limbo, Just Holland. Stripy has his jacket on now, looking fancy. And the ground is comming closer.

Hong Kong: joy gin (I am told that is Goodbye).
Emily, Derek, Nat, Thomas and Cheryl (with family): I'll see you again.

and we touch ground.