I wanted to share with you some of the interesting things about international travel and some of my specific adventures and things I noticed as I travelled back last week.
I visited 4 international airports within the space of 27 hours and there are a few things that are the same about all of them...
1) Everyone is either hurrying somewhere or waiting for something.
Hurrying generally takes the form of people awkwardly running while trying to look at Gate numbers and dragging their bags behind them and half trying to keep an eye on their kids who have normally become distracted by a vending machine or something else sugary.
Waiting generally takes the form of people tying themselves to their bags in an attempt at solo security and trying to sleep but not being able to because of the first group of hurrying people who continually almost step on them.
2) Meal times lose all meaning
International airports have a huge range of food available... Chinese, Lebanese, Japanese, Indian, American, Mexican, Moroccan.... pretty much every nation. I can only assume this is to make people coming from these nations feel at home when they arrive. Being n international airport, people are constantly time travelling arriving from every time zone and leaving to every time zone... therefore its normal to see an Indian family buying dinner next to a Australian family buying breakfast next to a Canadian family trying to sleep. There isn't such a thing as a "breakfast menu" because breakfast exists for 24 hours a day to match the people coming through....
This is a beneficial thing for people like me who sometimes likes to eat cereal for dinner but can't because usually its socially unacceptable. not here.
3) Its okay to do embarrassing things
Maybe this isn't a rule for everyone... but I figure that since I'm never going to see any of these people again after a few hours, its okay to do things like walk past the same restaurant 10 times looking at their menu board cause I can't decide. Or crawl under chairs to reach the floor outlets because the people sitting in the chair don't speak English for me to ask them to move over.
Or talk to the same security guy three times, each time in a different accent just to confuse him...
4) People make a home wherever they can
A lot of people are in an airport for a good many hours as they wait for their layover to end... You can identify these people by the tell tale signs of their entire bag content being spread out on the floor around them in their corner that they staked out. This could be a result of going through everything they own in an attempt to combat airport boredom or it could be their way of marking out the territory so no other weary travellers try to invade their corner.
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