I finally had the chance to return to Sydney, Australia, after a long absence. It’s one of my favorite layovers, but it seemed I kept getting stuck with China flights with the occasional Japan. The flight down here was uneventful. We bring 4 pilots. As I was slated to be a relief pilot–i.e. I don’t get to take off or land this time–I had first break. We took off about fifteen minutes late as directed by Sydney Air Traffic Control. Sydney ATC directing operations halfway around the globe in San Francisco, you ask? Yep. There’s a curfew for Sydney that is strictly enforced. Really, really strictly. Rumor has it that airlines are charged 250K USD for every airplane that lands before 6 am. Since we were scheduled to arrive at 5:57, we took the delay on the ground in SFO rather than having to fly a holding pattern 13-14 hours later in-flight. After take off, by about 11:30 pm, I was happily, drowsily falling asleep in the bottom bunk in our soundproofed bunkroom located behind a secret door in the cockpit. Next time you’re traveling on a 747, come upstairs to visit before the flight like people often do and ask to take a peek where the pilots sleep. Most find it interesting to see our “bedroom.” I’m always amazed at how many people think two of us stay up the entire time! When we got to the hotel about 8 am, two calendar days later (I try not to think about this) I was able to get a 2-hour nap to add to the four or so hours I’d gotten during the night. I’ve been so tired lately, sleeping was easy. Usually I’m way too hyper for naps (or don’t sleep well in the bunk because of turbulence, etc.) But I was meeting dear friends for lunch and wanted to be at least semi-conscious.
The lovely and talented–and RITA winner!–Isolde Martyn and her charming husband John met me in the lobby and we enjoyed a long lunch catching up. Thanks to them, I discovered a fantastic new restaurant only a few blocks from my hotel. It’s called Heritage Belgian Beer Café. The atmosphere and the food are fantastic. (Kangaroo loin is on the menu, btw, but having tried this once and not been impressed, I skipped it in favor of Flemmish beef stew.) I’m not a big fan of Belgium beer, preferring Chinese, Mexican, or Japanese brews, but John set me up with a light refreshing wheat beer that was lovely especially with a sliver of lemon. One thing that was fun about this pub was that a part of the floor was left cut-out. Covered with thick glass, it revealed part of the old Rocks district left from the 1800s. After we parted company, I nixed plans to take the ferry to Manly Beach (it was showering by then) and walked all over to all my favorite haunts, while buying requested treats for the kids (black licorice from Daryl Lea, and Cadbury bars from Woolworths) until I was tired all over again. I finished up a synopsis due my editor (it’s called juggling two careers, but the flying and the writing do seem to compliment each other) and by 6:60 I was in bed.
By 2:30 am, unfortunately, I was up. So I worked on more writing stuff until it was breakfast time. I would have gone out looking for a place to eat outside, but figured I could better work on my copy edits while eating if I stayed in the hotel. They have a nice buffet. Usually, it’s the same stuff. But this morning there was a new item. It was called “black pudding.” Except, it didn’t look like pudding; it looked a like dark sausage. It actually looked yummy, so I took a small piece to try. It’s rare I come across a food that I haven’t eaten or heard of, so unless something looks strangely gelatinous, or is pulsing, or is raw and isn’t fish, or has claws, I’ll try it. It was really yummy! Salty, savory. There were some lighter colored thingies in the sausage I wasn’t too sure about, but I removed those. So I went back and got a few more pieces to eat with my scrambled eggs. I kept thinking I should ask the waitress what it was, but they were busy. But something kept nagging at me to check: a back-of-the neck prickling of instincts. Back in the room, I googled “black pudding,” went to Wikipedia and discovered black pudding is another name for…blood pudding (insert horror music).
“It’s a sausage made by cooking animal blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. Blood sausage is a more recent North American term for the same as well as a useful term for similar blood-based solid foods around the world.”
Bleeaaaaaach! Bile rose in my throat. I’m fighting the urge to vomit even as I write this! Yet, I read on… “Pig or cattle blood is most often used; sheep and goat blood are used to a lesser extent. Blood from poultry, horses and other animals are used more rarely. Typical fillers include meat, fat, suet, bread, barley and oatmeal.”
Pray it was not goat blood!!! Not that it matters at this point. Blood mixed with oatmeal! What would the Quaker Oats man say?! Ugh! It can’t get any worse! I’m going to go brush my teeth AGAIN! I wish I were bulimic so I could upchuck at will, but my body won’t cooperate! Blood sausage. Ugh! I’m going to have nightmares for a week!
Anyone out there LIKE this stuff KNOWING what it is? I liked it…until I found out the ingredients. Anyone ever eat something THEN find out it was something straight out of Fear Factor? Please share and get my mind off this!
