Flight of Thought
Monday, Dec. 06, 2004 - 9:46 PM

Before 9/11, when going through security didn't require a boarding pass and ID, I used to go hang out at Baltimore/Washington International Airport. It's a quick fifteen minutes from my house -- only one road, one highway, and two Interstates away. Parking in the garage was free for the first half hour, $2 for the remainder of that hour, and a dollar for every hour after that. Level 2 used to have a crosswalk across the bustling pickup/dropoff driveway and it was quick and easy to cross to go to the terminal to watch the jets out the window and watch people coming and going. People hugging and crying, sometimes saying hello and sometimes bidding bon voyage.

I've always liked the airport. It's large and comforting. It's easy to blend in and everyone is so busy that you can just watch without being noticed. I feel at home in large structures in general, but especially in airports like Chicago O'Hare (which also has a cool EPCOT type light show in their underground people mover from security to terminals) and Denver International Airport is majestically supported by similar pillars to O'Hare.

Kuala Lumpur's airport in the capitol city of Malaysia was recently finished and is simply beautiful. It has a Chili's in it that is the last stop to taste American food before arriving in your final destination for most that connect there. Dubai, United Arab Emirates has an even more recently finished airport. The airport is smaller than Kuala Lumpur's, but is full of amazing shops and has a huge windows that let large amounts of light pour into the airport. Both of these airports have Red Crescents instead of Red Crosses.

Minneapolis's airport is too large to navigate in time when you're changing from a larger plane to a plane that departs from the satellite terminal used specially for prop planes that you use stairs instead of a jetway to board. Detroit's airport has some kickin' Chicago style pizza. Ketchikan, Alaska's airport and Logan International Airport in Boston, are my least favorite airports, both because the sections that I've been to are cramped and under construction. Seattle was the first airport that I used my laptop's wireless capabilities. I like Kansas City's airport because even though the floor was designed to appear littered by a hurried math professor with plus signs and minus signs running in lines like a pirate map to nowhere, the way they do security checks is faster than any other security check that I've been through with the possible exception of Orlando -- another bright and cheerful airport that, last I was there, had both a Disney and a WB store in it.

I once had a flight leave late from New York and arrive late in Frankfurt. We missed our connection and so as not to miss an appointment, instead of waiting for the next direct from Frankfurt to Madras, India flight, we went to Bombay and spent the night there. We had to switch from the International airport to the domestic and though it wreaked of curry, there we slept on the floor for nine hours. Bombay's curry airport, though, is better than Nelspruit's (South Africa) hut airport with unflushable, stench-drenched urinals and boxes of condoms on every wall.

When we went to Australia, Chad and I had another flight leave late and we missed our connecting flight. This time, instead of sleeping on an airport floor, we were upgraded to first class from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles. This included linen napkins and a three course meal served on china instead of in a tray. Six hour flights are preferable in first class.

It's been a long time since I've spent any time hanging out, drinking Frappaccinos at BWI. It's something I really miss doing. I often wish I could at least find a place to lay and watch the planes land and take off while sitting in my 1999 Chrysler Sebring convertable with the top down, staring at the stars and waiting for the next jumbo jet from Heathrow or Paris or Iceland or Switzerland or Frankfurt to land on the runway in front of me and slowly taxi over the tarmack as passengers are allowed to turn their cell phones back on and tell the people they love that they've arrived safely.

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