(Note: I am away from home and do not have access to my photo libraries. The photos in this post are from my mobile phone, which traveled on the global tour with me.)
- Entering the international terminal in Montevideo, Uruguay, en route from Guatemala City to Santiago de Chile.
Last night I returned to the antiseptic atmosphere of the airport for the first time since concluding the global tour for City Love Song last August.
Collectively, airports comprise a world-without-whimsy in which spontaneity finds no oxygen, and where free speech is constrained by the uncomfortable reality that destructionists have scurried through these same sterile hallways.
There is the food (often limited in selection or quality, but rarely in high pricing), and there are the lines: for check-in, for boarding, for information, passport control, customs, baggage claim, transit. This is what the world of airports (and even the experience of actual flying) amounts to: it is all one game of waiting.
Wait to get in, wait to get on, wait to go away, wait to get out, wait to go on.
- Crowds gathered to receive arriving friends and family in Istanbul.
As you might imagine, the number of hours spent waiting on this tour were many. The global tour required 26 flights through as many airports (though I never deplaned in Johannesburg; we were only on the ground for about an hour between Cape Town and Abu Dhabi while en route to New Delhi). I kept careful track of the time spent in the air and in airports, but, like my photographs, these figures are at home and will be appended to this post when I return.
As my itinerary began to take shape last January it quickly became clear that without resolving to accept all the time I’d pass in airports (and airplanes), I would go out of my flippin’ noggin. I began to prepare myself for long periods of boredom.
- A City Love Song sticker inserted between postcards at the airport in Dubai.
But it wasn’t boring. Sure, it was often dull. But as my travels continued the Airport began to emerge as a place of peace and solace. After a full week of navigation, observation and public performance, it was a great relief to come to a place where the currency I held and the language I spoke were no impediment to comfort or survival, and where the bathrooms were plentiful in number, usually clean and always free of charge. The hours spent in this predictable world restored me for the next round of adventures.
- New chairs for a new wing in the international terminal at Guangzhou.
That is not to say the Airport was without its own adventures. Lisbon Int’l was the backdrop for a health scare. Vancouver Int’l brought unexpected spiritual comfort. Indira Gandhi Int’l had me stewing with frustration. Cultural insights were gained at airports in Casablanca and Guangzhou. Lisbon Int’l served as backdrop to a health scare. A full 24 hours of international travel were observed in Abu Dhabi. And a terrific comedy unfolded in two acts at Galeão Int’l in Rio, producing one of my favorite tales from the entire global journey.
In the end I still prefer to move by train. It’s not just the ability to move about on foot while traveling; it is sustained engagement with the passing environment. I prefer the rhythm of the rail to the roar of the engine. It’s a far slower pace–still a game of waiting–and will never take you across any ocean. But the next time you find yourself bound for the predictable world of Airports, take comfort in the knowledge that you know what to expect. There’s not much of that left in the world we share these days.
- Passport control at Vancouver International.
