好英语网在飞机上度过19小时16分钟是一种怎样的体验
If you’re going to fly for nearly 20 hours through multiple time zones dressed in a pair of kangaroo-themed pajamas, jolting in and out of sleep in contravention of your normal circadian rhythm, you should take it easy on the medication. No one wants to go crazy in a metal tube 40,000 feet above the Pacific. On the other hand, suspecting that you have fallen into a rift in the space-time continuum itself is perhaps as reasonable a response as any to the longest (so far) commercial flight in the world.
如果你要穿着袋鼠图案睡衣，跨越多个时区，飞行近20个小时，生物钟被破坏，颠簸着睡睡醒醒，那你在服药方面要小心些。在太平洋上空4万英尺的一个金属管子里发疯可不是什么好事。另一方面，搭乘迄今为止世界上最长的民航班机，令你有理由怀疑自己陷入了时空连续体的裂缝。
So there I was last month, six or so hours into Qantas’s first-ever nonstop flight from New York City to Sydney. It was 3 a.m. New York time, which made it No O’clock in the tiny upscale refugee camp created by the airline. I had been suffering from congestion, the kind that migrates around your sinuses and then becomes an infection in your ear. While I was no longer contagious, there was some issue about the future of my ability to hear. The internet did not have good news. “Flying with an ear infection doesn’t always result in a ruptured eardrum,” one website said.
上个月，我乘上澳洲航空公司(Qantas)首次开启的从纽约直飞悉尼的航班，起飞大约6个小时后，我的感觉就是如此。那是纽约时间凌晨3点，到了这个由航空公司创建的小小高档难民营里，就成了一个不可忍受的时刻。我一直饱受鼻塞之苦，是那种在鼻窦周围移动，然后造成耳道感染的鼻塞。虽然我已经没有传染性，但会在未来给听力造成一些问题。网络也没给我带来什么好消息。一个网站说：“带着耳道感染飞行，并不一定会导致鼓膜破裂。”
悉尼大学查尔斯·帕金斯中心的玛丽·卡罗尔教授（右）领着研究志愿者做拉伸。
Basically, I had been taking decongestants since midafternoon. I felt like a junkie in a gritty TV show about Times Square in the 1970s, nervous and sweaty and incoherent even as I was beset by an achy, leaden inertia. Soon the lights would go down, part of the airline’s next planned group activity (sleeping) and I would make perhaps the gravest pharmaceutical error of my adult life. But that was still in the future.
基本上，我从下午三点左右就开始服用抗鼻塞药物。我感觉自己就像一部关于1970年代时报广场的电视剧里的瘾君子，紧张、流汗、语无伦次，同时被无法活动带来的疼痛、僵硬的感觉困扰。飞机很快就要熄灯了，这是航空公司计划的下一个集体活动（睡觉）的一部分，我可能会犯我成年以来最严重的用药错误。但那还是后来的事。
Look, everybody wants to avoid a LAX stopover
你看，大家都是想避免在洛杉矶国际机场转机
Ever since there has been flight, there have been new frontiers in aviation. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic. In 1976, the Concorde showed that it is possible, though perhaps not advisable in the end, to whisk paying passengers around the world at twice the speed of sound. Long-haul flights, which used to be crucibles of noise and motion sickness, have become oases of calm and luxury, at least for those lucky enough to afford premium seats.
自打有飞行以来，航空业就一直在开拓新的疆域。1927年，查尔斯·林白(Charles Lindbergh)第一次独自飞越大西洋。1976年，协和式飞机表明，以两倍于音速的速度载着付费乘客环游世界是可能的，尽管到头来可能并不明智。长途飞行曾经意味着噪音和晕机的折磨，现在变成了平静和奢侈的绿洲，至少对那些幸运到买得起高级座位的人来说是这样。
And now along comes Qantas, with its plan to offer direct, nonstop flights between Sydney and New York, flights that will take nearly 20 hours — longer even than the current longest-haul flight on the books, Singapore Airlines’s just-under-19-hours trip between Singapore and Newark.
现在，澳航计划提供悉尼和纽约之间的直达航班，飞行时间将接近20个小时，甚至比目前记录中最长的航程还要长——新加坡航空从新加坡到纽瓦克航班的飞行时间不到19个小时。
For Qantas, the new route will shave some three hours off the regular New York-Sydney route and eliminate the need to change planes in the hellhole that is Los Angeles International Airport. That in itself is cause for celebration. In the words of Alan Joyce, Qantas’s chief executive: “Those who come through L.A. know how much of a pain it is.”
对澳航来说，这条新航线将把从纽约至悉尼的常规航线缩短约3个小时，而且无需在洛杉矶国际机场这个地狱般的地方转机。这本身就值得庆祝。用澳航首席执行官艾伦·乔伊斯(Alan Joyce)的话来说:“那些经历过洛杉矶的人知道有多痛苦。”
The airline hopes to offer the flights commercially in the next few years, but so far they are still in their experimental stages. The first of three research flights took off on Oct. 18, carrying 49 people in all — some Qantas employees, six frequent fliers and a gaggle of reporters. Our carbon would be offset, Qantas promised, and the flight would actually use less fuel than the flights that stop midroute. “This is a historic moment for Qantas, for Australian aviation, and for world aviation,” the chief pilot on the plane, Sean Golding, declared.
该航空公司希望在未来几年内提供商业航班，但目前仍处于试验阶段。10月18日，三架试验航班中的第一架起飞，机上共有49人，其中包括一些澳航员工、六名常客和一群叽叽喳呱的记者。我们会补偿碳排放，澳航承诺，而且直飞实际上会比中途转机的航班使用更少的燃料。“这对澳航、澳大利亚航空和世界航空来说都是一个历史性的时刻，”机上的首席飞行员肖恩·戈尔丁(Sean Golding)说。
Sleep is for losers
没出息的人才睡觉
I happen to love long trips. I love Australia. No one could be more excited than I am about the chance to sit for an extended stretch of time, Wi-Fi-less, in business class with access to dozens of movies and TV shows that you would never pay to watch at home. I am impervious to jet lag! Sleep is for losers. Still, the notion of a “research flight” was troubling from the perspective of participatory journalism. What if the result of the research was that the plane failed to reach its destination? I am not that devoted to the future of air travel.
我碰巧喜欢长途旅行。我喜欢澳大利亚。没有人比我更兴奋了，因为这样我就有机会在没有Wi-Fi的商务舱里坐很长一段时间，看几十部在家里绝对不会花钱看的电影和电视剧，我才不怕时差！没出息的人才睡觉。尽管如此，从参与式新闻的角度来看，“研究飞行”的概念仍然令人不安。如果研究结果是飞机未能到达目的地怎么办？我对未来的航空旅行事业并没有那么强的奉献精神。
But the issue was not the plane — a brand-new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, fresh off the Seattle assembly line, still rocking that new-plane smell, with seats no one had ever sat in before — it was the passengers. How would such a ridiculously long flight affect our sleep, our moods, our digestion, and our hormone and melatonin levels? Researchers planned to use mental-acuity and physical data collected from the frequent fliers and the flight crew to help make life easier for travelers on future flights.
但是需要研究的问题不在于飞机——这是一架全新的波音787-9梦想客机，刚从西雅图的装配线上下来，还带着新飞机的味道，座椅还没有人坐过——而是在于乘客。这么长时间的飞行会对我们的睡眠、情绪、消化、荷尔蒙和褪黑素产生怎样的影响呢？研究人员计划利用从常搭航班的旅客和机组人员那里收集来的精神敏度和身体数据，以便让今后的乘客能舒服些。
We also had a bracing talking-to from Prof. Marie Carroll, a cognitive psychologist who is director of educational development at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre and served as the flight’s onboard jet lag consultant. Reset your watch to Sydney time as soon as you get on the plane! Avoid alcohol. Move about. Stay up as long as possible, and then do not mess around. Turn off your screens. Put in your earplugs; use your eye masks. No more TV! Go to sleep. It always works for her, she said. “I expect to be fully awake the whole day tomorrow,” she said.
我们还接受了玛丽·卡罗尔(Marie Carroll)教授振奋人心的训话。卡罗尔是一位认知心理学家，悉尼大学查尔斯·帕金斯中心(Charles Perkins Centre)的教育发展主任，曾担任飞机上的时差顾问。一上飞机就把你的手表调到悉尼时间！不要喝酒。多活动。尽量撑久点再睡，不要胡闹。关掉电子设备屏幕。戴上耳塞；戴上眼罩。别老看电视！去睡觉。她说，这对她总是有效的。“预计第二天一整天我都会醒着，”她说。
Ha ha ha. (In my personal experience.)
呵呵呵。（根据我的个人经验。）
Do not try this at home
不要在家里尝试
Professor Carroll’s advice assumed a degree of baseline mental calmness. But preparing for an overseas flight is never easy. You cram a week’s worth of deadlines into two days; you stay up late packing; you obsess about every red light and every nuance of bad traffic en route to the airport. Even the most blameless traveler worries that she will get busted by the T.S.A. for random crimes against security. There’s a special kind of exhaustion that comes from hauling carry-on luggage through the anxiety-suffused corridors of an airport at night.
卡罗尔教授的建议是建立在你心理基本平静的基础上的。但是准备一次海外飞行从来都不容易。你把一周的截稿期限都塞在两天里完成；你熬夜打包行李；去机场路上，每一个红灯和每一个细微的交通状况都令你困扰。即使是最无辜的旅行者也担心会因为无意中违反安保规则的罪行被交通安全管理局逮捕。晚上拖着随身行李穿过机场焦虑弥漫的通道时，会产生一种特殊的疲惫。
We had an unusually easy time at Kennedy International Airport, with our separate check-in desk and cordoned-off section of the departure lounge, but I already felt pretty ropy. By the time boarding began, at 8:30 p.m. or so, I had already taken three different prescription medications, plus an allergy tablet, plus a Sudafed. Right before takeoff I squirted a massive dose of Afrin up my nose. I might as well have shot amphetamines directly into my veins. My head felt like a beehive at honey-making time.
我们在肯尼迪国际机场度过了一段不同寻常的轻松时光，我们有单独的登机柜台和候机室区域，但我已经感觉很不舒服了。登机时间是晚上8点30分左右，当时我已经吃了三种不同的处方药，包括过敏片和苏达菲。飞机起飞前，我往鼻子里喷了一剂阿弗林。我还不如直接静脉注射安非他明呢。药物开始起效的时候，我的头感觉像个蜂窝。
Most airlines feed the passengers immediately on overnight flights and then cut the lights, but the idea this time was to keep us up for more than six hours — until the middle of the night, New York time — by, among other things, feeding us spicy dinners that would serve as “a wake-up slap in the face,” Professor Carroll said. I had saffrony tomato soup and a lively-tasting sea bass, followed by caffeine-infused dark chocolate and tea.
在持续整夜的航班上，大多数航空公司会马上为乘客提供饮食，然后把灯打开，但是这一次，我们要开灯6个多小时，直到纽约时间的半夜，除此之外，航班会向我们提供辣味的晚餐，卡罗尔教授说，这就像“把人打醒的一记耳光。”我喝了番红花番茄汤，吃了味道鲜美的海鲈鱼，然后喝了含有咖啡因的黑巧克力和茶。
Womp. The lights were also cranked up, as bright as interrogation lamps, part of the plan to trick our bodies into thinking they were already in Sydney, 14 hours ahead. I watched multiple episodes of “Barry,” about a hit man who joins a Los Angeles acting class led by Henry Winkler. The crew handed out pajamas with kangaroos on the front, instilling a pleasant sense of group infantilization, as if we were participants in an adult slumber party. From the seat in front of me, David Koch, co-presenter of the Australian morning show “Sunrise,” told me that it was important to understand the psychological ramifications of the sartorial transition.
白光一闪。灯光也被调亮了，亮得像审讯室一样，这是计划的一部分，目的是欺骗我们的身体，让它们以为自己已经提前14个小时到达了悉尼。我看了好几集的《巴瑞》(Barry)，讲的是一个杀手加入了由亨利·温克勒(Henry Winkler)领导的洛杉矶表演班。工作人员分发了正面有袋鼠图案的睡衣，给大家灌输一种集体幼儿化的愉快感觉，就好像我们是来参加成人睡衣派对的。在我前面的座位上，澳大利亚早间节目《日出》(Sunrise)的联席主持人戴维·科赫(David Koch)告诉我，理解着装转变的心理后果很重要。
“It’s a sleep cue,” he said, of the pajamas. “Don’t put them on until you are ready to go to sleep.” I said that I already felt jet-lagged, even though the monitor on my screen indicated that there were more than 16 hours to go. As an Australian, he replied, he prides himself on his travel-related stoicism, particularly since, to be honest, he always travels in business class.
“这是一种睡眠的暗示，”他是指睡衣。“等你真要睡觉了再穿上它。”我说我已经感觉到时差了，尽管屏幕监视器显示还有16个多小时才到悉尼。他回答说，作为一名澳大利亚人，他为自己在旅行时很能吃苦耐劳而自豪，尤其是，老实说，他总是乘坐商务舱。
“You know it will take you at least seven hours to get anywhere,” he said. “The feeling is, ‘Toughen up, princess, you’re at the front of the plane, so stop whining.’”
“你知道你至少要花七个小时才能到达任何地方，”他说。“我的感觉是，‘坚强点吧，公主，你已经在飞机的前部，不要再抱怨了。’”
My brain would not shut up; my body wanted to crawl into a coffin and remain there forever. Some of the frequent fliers had glasses of wine, even though they weren’t supposed to, and then fell asleep. A few rows ahead, Mr. Joyce began watching “Fleabag,” which he had not seen before, and found the opening scene, in which Phoebe Waller-Bridge narrates her sexual encounter in medias res, unexpectedly racy. At one point, Professor Carroll led a group through a set of calisthenics in the back of the plane, encouraging us to use the oven handles as makeshift barres. We finished with an enthusiastic, if sloppy, mass performance of the “Macarena."
我的大脑不愿停止运转；我的身体想要爬进棺材，永远留在那里。一些经常乘坐飞机的乘客喝了几杯酒——虽然他们不应该这样做——然后就睡着了。隔了几排，乔伊斯开始看他还没看过的《伦敦生活》(Fleabag)，发现开头的一幕——菲比·沃勒-布里奇(Phoebe Waller-Bridge)在媒体上讲述自己的性经历——出人意料地刺激。后来，卡罗尔教授带领一组人在飞机后部做了一组健美操，让我们把烤箱的把手当作临时的栏杆。最后我们热情但错误百出地合唱了一曲《马卡雷纳》(Macarena)。
Do not try this on a plane either
不要在飞机上尝试这个
Back in my seat, I tried to do some work but could not focus. It was already something o’clock in Sydney, though it was 1 a.m. on the plane. Following Professor Carroll’s advice, I took two milligrams of melatonin as a body-clock-resetting measure. On my video monitor, George Clooney had unwisely boarded a creepy space station where, whenever he dozed off, he encountered either his dead wife or a malign specter conjured from the dark recesses of his imagination, it was hard to tell the difference. I could respect his dilemma. “How long can you go without sleep?” a character in the movie asked.
回到座位上，我试着做点工作，但无法集中注意力。悉尼时间大概是白天，但飞机上已经是凌晨一点了。根据卡罗尔教授的建议，我服用了两毫克的褪黑素，作为生物钟重置的措施。在我面前的屏幕上，乔治·克鲁尼(George Clooney)轻率地登上了一个令人毛骨悚然的空间站。每当他打瞌睡的时候，要么遇到他死去的妻子，要么遇到一个从他想象的黑暗角落里变出来的邪恶幽灵。我可以理解他的困境。“你能坚持多久不睡？”电影中的一个角色问道。
The crew handed out our second meal, a soporific mélange of sweet potato soup, sandwiches and a panna cotta trifle. The idea was to fill us with carbohydrates and milky foods to help us sleep. By now, it was something like 3 a.m. and all these things were clashing in my stomach. I thought with fondness of my bed at home.
空服人员给了我们第二顿饭，一份催人入睡的甘薯汤、三明治和奶酪蛋糕。为的是用碳水化合物和乳品来帮我们入睡。现在，大概是凌晨3点左右，所有这些东西在我的胃里碰撞。我思念家里的床。
After dinner, the mood rapidly downshifted. Whoosh, the lights went out. The effect was of being in a birdcage over which your owner has abruptly dropped a blackout cloth. Everyone lay down and (it seemed) fell asleep on the spot. Alone with my obsessions, I kept remembering “Lost in Translation,” the 2003 film in which a dazed and alienated Bill Murray wanders around Tokyo for days on end, wacked out from insomnia.
晚饭后，情绪迅速低落下来。嗖的一声，灯灭了。那效果就像在一个鸟笼里，你的主人突然把遮光布扔在鸟笼上。每个人都躺下，（似乎）当场就睡着了。独自沉浸在痴迷的事物中，我不断回想起2003年的电影《迷失东京》(Lost in Translation)，片中茫然而疏离的比尔·默里(Bill Murray)在东京徘徊数日，失眠让他感到错乱。
Against Professor Carroll’s judgment, I took an Ambien and then, when it did not seem to work, took another one. I do not know what happened next. Nor do I know what time it was when the lights surged back on, because I cannot read what I wrote in that particular section of my notebook. But we were much closer to Australia.
我不顾卡罗尔教授的判断，吃了一片安必恩(Ambien)，然后，当它似乎不起作用时，我又吃了一片。我不知道接下来发生了什么。也不知道什么时候灯又亮了，因为我看不懂笔记本上写的那一段。但我们离澳大利亚近多了。
The passengers were in various states of bedragglement; the crew members, who had slept in shifts, looked fresh and perky. Breakfast came, an energizing egg-white omelet with balsamic herb potatoes, sautéed kale, spinach and mushrooms. I was so happy to have such a nice meal. I knocked back several lattes and a glass of “wake up juice.” Nutrition coursed through my body. Knowing that, when it comes to sinuses, landing is far worse than taking off, I took another decongestant, an allergy pill, an antibiotic and a couple more squirts of Afrin.
乘客们已经处于各种糟糕状况中；机组人员轮班休息，看上去精神抖擞。早餐来了，是一份充满活力的蛋清煎蛋卷，里面有香草土豆、炒甘蓝、菠菜和蘑菇。我很高兴有这么好的一顿饭。我喝了几杯拿铁咖啡和一杯“醒脑果汁”。营养流经我的全身。我知道，在鼻窦问题上，着陆时比起飞时要严重得多，于是我又服用了一种解充血药、一种过敏药、一种抗生素和几滴阿氟林(Afrin)。
Across the aisle, Billy Foster, a cameraman for Sunrise, Mr. Koch’s program, said he normally wakes up for work at 3 a.m., but had been traveling so much that he had lost track of what day it was. He had already had four double shots of espresso. “I reckon I got two or three hours of sleep,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a train.”
过道对面是科赫的节目《日出》的摄影师比利·福斯特(Billy Foster)，他说自己通常在凌晨3点起床上班，但他旅行得太多，已经忘了今天是什么日子。他已经喝了四杯双倍浓缩咖啡。“我想我睡了两三个小时，”他说。“我感觉像被火车撞了似的”。
On the other hand, David Speck, the onboard chef, was doing much better. He had followed his own nutritional program. “I had a big bowl of soup and thought, ‘I’ll just sit down and watch a movie,’” he said. “I started watching a Johnny Depp movie, what was it called? I lasted about five minutes. Five hours later, the guys took about five minutes to wake me up. It’s probably the best sleep I’ve ever had on a plane.”
另一方面，机上的厨师大卫·斯佩克(David Speck)情况要好得多。他遵循自己的营养计划。“我喝了一大碗汤，然后想，‘我还是坐下来看场电影吧，’”他说。“我开始看约翰尼·德普(Johnny Depp)的电影，叫什么来着？我坚持了大约五分钟。五小时后，伙计们花了差不多五分钟把我叫醒。这可能是我在飞机上睡得最好的一次。”
In a fetal position, 10,000 miles from home
离家一万英里的地方，保持胎儿体位
Qantas declared the flight a huge success. We had traveled 16,200 kilometers, or just about 10,000 miles, in 19 hours and 16 minutes, arriving with fuel to spare. We had beaten another, non-direct Qantas plane that left New York three hours before us. A crowd of airport employees was waiting to watch us glide in. “I feel great,” Mr. Golding said.
澳航宣布此次飞行取得了巨大成功。我们在19小时16分钟内飞行了1.62万公里，恰好约合1万英里，抵达时燃料还有剩余。我们击败了比我们早三小时离开纽约的另一架澳航非直飞航班。一群机场工作人员正等着看我们滑行进去。“我感觉很好，”戈尔丁说。
Back in our adult clothes, we were sent away with gifts of commemorative stuffed kookaburras. I was not doing so well, but most of the passengers seemed fine — better than you would expect after nearly a day in the air. Their conversation was coherent. They did not feel the need to immediately put on their sunglasses when we disembarked onto the tarmac.
我们穿回成人的衣服，拿到一些当作纪念品的笑翠鸟标本，然后就被打发走了。我的情况不太好，但大多数乘客看起来都很好——比想象中经过近一天的飞行的人要好。他们说话是有条理的。当我们下到停机坪上时，他们并没有觉得有必要马上戴上墨镜。
And so let us be clear: What happened next was my own fault. I am aware that no one wants to hear how a person lucky enough to be an aviation pioneer traveling in the lap of luxury on a historic flight in a brand-new airplane to a continent halfway around the world at no personal financial cost can, in the end, barely make it out in one piece. No one wants to hear how I lost first my kookaburra, and then my breakfast. (Qantas rescued the kookaburra.)
因此，我们先明确一点：接下来发生的事情是我自己的错。我知道没有人想听一个人幸运到可以搭乘试飞航班，在奢侈的环境中乘坐一架崭新的飞机前往半个地球之外的大陆，进行一次历史性的飞行而不需要个人支付任何费用，最后却才勉强安然无恙。没人想听我如何先失去笑翠鸟，然后失去我的早餐。(澳航救下了笑翠鸟。)
We had been told that to combat jet lag when you arrive at your destination, you should go outside and walk around. Let that light sweep over you. So I did. Sydney is so beautiful. After dropping off my bags at my hotel, I staggered into the great Australian sunshine, past the majestic opera house and through the botanical gardens. I found a nice spot near some fetching white ibises, birds that I later learned are considered the “bin chickens” or “trash turkeys” of Australia.
我们被告知，为克服到达目的地后的时差反应，你应该到外面走走。让那光照耀你。所以我照做了。悉尼是如此美丽。把行李送到酒店后，我踉踉跄跄地走进澳大利亚灿烂的阳光下，经过雄伟的歌剧院，穿过植物园。我在一些迷人的白鹮附近找到了一个不错的地方，后来我了解到，这些鸟被视为澳大利亚的“垃圾鸟”或“垃圾火鸡”。
Here’s one way of coping with acute Australian post-flight nausea. Lie down on the grass. Arrange yourself into a fetal position. Use your handbag as a pillow and, if you are worried about the concerned expressions of passers-by who suspect you are dead, cover your face with your hat. Remain there for several hours, moving as little as possible so as not disturb your stomach’s uneasy equilibrium.
以下是一种应对飞行至澳大利亚后的急性恶心的方法。躺在草地上。让自己处于胎儿体位。用你的手提包当枕头，如果你担心路人因怀疑你死了而都露出关心的表情，就用帽子遮住脸。在那里保持几个小时，尽量少动，以免打乱你胃部不稳定的平衡。
Your body is right there next to one of the world’s most spectacular harbors, even if your mind has slipped into the Twilight Zone. You have traversed half the world in less than a day. You have left one place on Friday and successfully arrived in another place on Sunday. It is hard to comprehend that concept, how carelessly we skip over time and space, how casually we lose entire days. What happened to Saturday? Try as you might, you realize, you’ll never figure it out.
你的身体紧邻世界上最壮观的港口之一，即使你的大脑已经滑入“迷离时空”。你在不到一天的时间里走过了半个地球。你周五离开了一个地方，周日成功抵达另一个地方。很难理解这个概念，我们多么漫不经心地跳过时间和空间，多么随意地失去一整天。周六发生了什么？你意识到，不管怎么努力，你永远也弄不明白。