Airport Stories, Round I

On my way here, I had a four hour layover in the Frankfurt airport. While waiting for my transit ticket, I struck up a conversation with two other people who were on my flight. They were both Americans. One of them was a 18 year old girl from the South who was going to college in Edinburgh, and the other was a 29 year old man who lived in Virginia who was going to Bangalore for two weeks. He was some type of contractor.

We all had some time to kill, so the man suggested getting lunch somewhere. We sat down and talked for a long time. I discovered he had gone to Dickinson, and we tried to revive Centennial Conference rivalry. Unfortunately, neither of us remembered the name of the other's mascot (I refrained from telling him we didn't really have one) so it wasn't much of a rivalry. His wife was about to have their first baby, so he was worried about being away from home.

Over lunch, we had a surprising personal conversation. The girl told us that she had gone to Europe the summer before to model in the Dior show, and had done that for six months before "divorcing it." (She was impossibly pretty, and very tall and thin, so the fact she was a model was somewhat of a relief to me. I try to emulate Dar and not be afraid of women, but it's hard not to be intimidated by someone looking that polished after a transatlantic flight.) She told us that fashion was "as far away from helping people as you could get," and thus made for a better hobby than job. She also spoke about her struggles with eating disorders.

The man told us about his wife's difficult pregnancy and their fears of Type II diabetes. He also told us the name they'd picked out for the baby, a fact they were keeping from all their friends and relatives. I talked about my fears about leaving my friends and family behind. I think what made the conversation so special is that we were at three different but sequential beginnings in our life-- she was starting college, I was starting my first job, he was having his first child. At the very end, we realized we didn't know one another's names.

Other than that, my flight was pretty unremarkable. I somehow got an Express Plus seat instead of an Express seat on the way to Frankfurt. I'm not sure if this was because they were out of Express seats or because my work was being really nice to me. The perks: 1) 6 inches extra legroom (intentional perk) 2) free financial times (intentional perk) 3) man in front of me bought me drink (unintentional perk) 4) our food came first (perk of dubious intentionality). Verdict: Not worth the 89 dollars it would have cost me, but very nice as a free seat.

The rest of the way I flew Lufthansa, and was able to confirm my emerging airport hierarchy. Emirates>Lufthansa>All other carriers, except Southwest, which belongs in its own special category because I like its egalitarian seating scheme. I hope to flesh out this hierarchy as the year goes on. The women next to me on that flight was going to Bahrain to work for the government.

I'm in Abu Dhabi now, and so far, so good. I don't even feel jet-lagged. I plan to post more about Abu Dhabi tomorrow.