Chronicles of Home: On Airports

I can’t help it. I like writing about things related to airports and planes. Funny things happen. Or maybe they aren't funny, but you're so excited then exhausted then excited and exhausted that they seem funny. I actually just snorted out loud in a busy coffee shop re-reading my own entry.

The night before I left Uganda to fly back to the States, for instance, I was standing tiptoe on my rather flimsy desk chair, all 5’4” of me trying desperately to reach to the inner depths of my top closet to get at my travel pillow. The chair, of course, tipped forward, sending my body scraping down the front of my closet, my shorts getting caught on the handle in the descent, suspending me ever so slightly above ground, which I didn’t know could actually happen, other than in movies. After using a combination of arm strength, the toppled chair, and my left big toe, I managed to unhook myself (shorts unscathed) and assess the damage. Four horizontal slices across my left wrist. It couldn’t have looked more like a suicide attempt if a highly trained Hollywood make-up artist did it himself. Over the course of my four flights, five airports and forty hours of travel the following days, my attempt to cover it up with a Band-Aid elicited more stares than if I had just embraced my lesions. (The good news: On attempt #2, I scored the pillow.)

While in the Entebbe airport waiting to start the first leg of our journey (Meredith and I were on the same flight to Amsterdam), Mer and I had the pleasure of sitting next to a man completely oblivious to the fact that, if he held his iPhone up to his ear without any ear phones plugged in, the entire terminal could still hear his really embarrassing music selection, loud and unfortunately clear. The dance moves didn't help his situation.

Aside: You know you’re a little out of touch when there’s a list of a couple dozen recent movies to choose from on the plane, you’ve only heard of 2, and you have absolutely no idea whether or not either of them were any good. I’m not even going to tell which ones I watched, for fear that I will be severely reprimanded.

The Schiphol airport staff in Amsterdam were as friendly and helpful as usual, that being none whatsoever. No, they can’t help me register the frequent flyer miles from my Entebbe to Amsterdam flight. Don’t touch those – they’re breakable. And, again at another counter, no, I can’t possibly credit you for those frequent flyer miles from the flight you just stepped off of; all electronic records of your presence on this flight have been wiped out in the 10 minutes since your plane landed. You’re going to have to go through the highly inefficient process of mailing in your ticket and 19 other forms of proof that you were on the flight – each of them signed 7 times, certified by the notary public, and sealed appropriately with rubber glue. No licking. Please include a detailed memo admitting your stupidity for not producing your frequent flyer card in the first place, apologizing profusely for creating 10 extra seconds of work for one of our employees, and providing outstanding praise for our in-flight and counter services that we can frame and hang on our refrigerators. You will then be guaranteed to have someone consider crediting you for the 4,000 miles you paid for and sat through. In economy.

“Thanks so much for your help!”

Amsterdam seems to be a more…“direct” kind of place in general. The rather abrasive nature of their standard missing passenger announcement never fails to amuse me. “Passenger Gonzalez, traveling to Madrid, you are delaying the flight. Immediate boarding please at Gate D61, or we will proceed to offload your luggage.”

After Mer was interrogated heavily by whoever exactly it is that does the interrogating before you get on a flight to the States, I ended up walking past Sbarro. For the third time. It was one of those things where your body sees Sbarro and it wants Sbarro even though it’s not an appropriate time for Sbarro, but you can easily rationalize your way into Sbarro (your body’s confused, everybody else is doing it), so you get your overpriced slice of Sbarro, awkwardly balance your tray in one hand and push your trolley with the other, knock into a couple chairs and feet and bags on the way to your table – the empty one way over there on the other side of the restaurant – and proceed to get grease all over your face and fingers while enjoying your “breakfast”, because there was no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks you were going to be able to stop and get a napkin without attracting an absurd amount of attention to yourself. You feel a twinge of guilt for the 8am indulgence – until, that is, you see a guy walking toward you with a frothy, sweating pint of cold beer. Did I mention it was 8am?

This was one of my most poorly planned flight routes, by the way. Somehow, I failed to notice that I had a 7+ hour layover in Amsterdam, instead of the normal 4. Meredith was home in Boston before I even boarded in Amsterdam.

After I had a near panic attack when I momentarily lost my mom’s opal earring at the security checkpoint in Dulles airport, had my flights from Dulles to JFK and from JFK to Syracuse delayed due to inclement weather, and used a real live pay phone to inform family of said delays, I finally landed in a very cold, very empty Syracuse airport. Empty, that is, except for Dad, Kay and Mitch, who stood there with a “Welcome home Jen” sign…made creatively out of newspaper and red pen, after they sat waiting for me for an extra couple hours.

Arrival back at 103 Jones Drive was picture perfect. A winter wonderland of a snowfall, white lights sparkling around the house, and Gram’s seven-layer cookies and fudge on the kitchen counter.

After Sbarro at 8am, what’s wrong with a little fudge at 2?