Frankfurt airport now also belongs on the list of airports I don’t particularly like. It’s huge, and the signage is a terrible mixture of the London Tube and Cairo, as if there were someone able to change the signs with a button and were sitting somewhere with a malicious glee and a “haha! Got you now! Hahahaha! And again!”. I joyrided the escalator to the fourth floor – twice – because I couldn’t figure out where the sign for gate E5 told me to go. Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiish. The bag slides another eight inches, impelled by my foot. Swiiiiiiiiish. Another eight inches. At a snail’s pace I creep my way through the line, down the hall, around the trash can and finally approaching the check-in counter. Good thing I’m here three hours before my flight…
The flight itself seems to be filled with a broad mix of holidaymakers, locals (from somewhere in the Gulf, I suppose), with a disproportionate number of unattractive German men (heiratsunfähig?) with youngish Thai wives. But I make no assumptions… Surprisingly, the national airlines of the UAE serves booze for free and had movies on demand. I made it through Sunshine Cleaning and The International. I’ve watched more movies this last week than in the last year, I’m sure of it.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
What a Fox!
Already you could see the masses streaming towards the park; it was if a magnetic pull drew them on, and we found ourselves joining the masses. After we accidentally ran a red light and managed to park the car, of course. Anything you wanted was there: sausages and fries, pizza and lemonade, beer and terrible “Grape” beer drinks, port-o-potties, and anything you wanted required waiting in line for quite awhile. As I waited for my turn in the green plastic cubicle, the girls next to me were eating pizza, drinking champagne, and discussing their problems with a fellow named Matze (short form of Matthias or Matthew). I stood there long enough next to them, learning about how he needs boundaries and less coddling of his whims, that I started to suspect this fellow was one of their children rather than one of their boyfriends. Eventually we managed to acquire our beverages of choice and made our way to where friends were ostensibly fending off the masses to secure us a spot in exchange for not having to go wait in line for Coca Cola themselves. Our little caravan of three cars had split into an earlier and a later group, and the earlier group had staked out a prime location at the “foot of the hill, to the left of the stage, at the height of the screen.” With these precise directions we set off, but by this time the entire stage area and the “hill” were entirely full, the later looking as if it were covered in brightly-colored ants.
Ostensibly there was a path between the “orchestra” space and the “hill”, but by this time even this had become full of latecomers who figured it wasn’t worth shoving father in and had contented themselves with standing on the path. And inevitably, at some point, the steady but trickling progress through the masses ground to a complete halt, complicated by the stream from the other direction and the woman who – despite all logic and maternal instinct – insisted in letting her small son try to trycicle his way through the crowds with admirable determination for someone who is knee high. And we’re stopped. And no one knows we’re really stopped and not just dawdling, and someone sees that the path is blocked by stationary people who don’t look like they want to move. And someone decides to move the process along, and suddently I’m being shoved into the person in front of me, who was shoved by the person behind them, who was shoved by the person behind them… but it’s still not moving forward and the mass compresses like air in a bottle. You could almost taste the stench of so many people pressed on one another as your body is sandwiched. I could feel the contours of the body of the person behind me; I knew he was male and wearing a belt, and considerably taller than I am, and I realized with a sting that my bracelet, a wide metal ring open on one side, had caught on someone and was now almost stabbing into my arm. A string of teenies who had linked into a chain were slowly torn from one another. Thankfully, the girl’s escalating cries, bordering on hysteria, of “I can’t get any air! I can’t breathe!” only marginally preceded the eventual release of pressure and we stumbled forward as if air expelled from a balloon.
But it was worth it. The ideal location valiantly defended by our friends was indeed fantastic, as close as you could get to the stage without hitting the mosh pit, and still, as we were on the hill, providing a good view in the stadium-seating-like array. The only problem was that we had to actually stand on said hill, which wasn’t level and allowed no room for sitting down or for moving in any direction besides vertical, and after the arduous fight to our spot, we downed our cokes and beers long before the show began. In an attempt to entertain us, the producers sent a series of beach balls into the crowd which we were supposed to keep afloat; the crowd, in turn, countered with oblong balloons floating lazily from here to there, made of condoms. Someone up and to the left had a Spongebob balloon which eventually escaped, and the entire crowd turned to watched Mr Squarepants floating lazily into the stratosphere, his little foil arm twitching in the breeze as if he were waving us goodbye. He probably had an appointment with the hot air balloon taking off in the background.
It’s something incredible to see so many people in one place. Some estimates say over 40 000 were gathered there; as far as the eye could see there were people, fading into little ecstatic dots. And because the performer – Peter Fox, former frontman of the German hip-hop band Seeed from Berlin – was well known, he didn’t have to convince the crowd. Religion is perhaps the opiate of the masses, but concerts are more likely the adderol of the masses. Hands stretched towards the stage, bobbing with the beat, in the typical gesture which for us at least was the only movement possible in such a tight space.
The band itself consisted of Mr Fox, three backup singers (two ladies and a tattooed man who looked like he moonlighted in movies like the Fast and the Furious), a random guy who danced around with a monkey mask on (makes sense for Peter Fox), and a row of drummers who were probably horribly happy to not also have to wear a monkey mask. And the cool thing was that all of these people, throughout much of the show, were dancing in unison. The drummers were there for both percussion and show, spinning sticks, making shapes with them and meanwhile dancing along. It was like the mutant lovechild of marching band, line dancing and hip hop music.
After two hours of frenetic jumping up and down on the side of the hill, we were subjected to two “opening” groups who were actually “ending” groups, fortified with slurpees and went on our way.
Ostensibly there was a path between the “orchestra” space and the “hill”, but by this time even this had become full of latecomers who figured it wasn’t worth shoving father in and had contented themselves with standing on the path. And inevitably, at some point, the steady but trickling progress through the masses ground to a complete halt, complicated by the stream from the other direction and the woman who – despite all logic and maternal instinct – insisted in letting her small son try to trycicle his way through the crowds with admirable determination for someone who is knee high. And we’re stopped. And no one knows we’re really stopped and not just dawdling, and someone sees that the path is blocked by stationary people who don’t look like they want to move. And someone decides to move the process along, and suddently I’m being shoved into the person in front of me, who was shoved by the person behind them, who was shoved by the person behind them… but it’s still not moving forward and the mass compresses like air in a bottle. You could almost taste the stench of so many people pressed on one another as your body is sandwiched. I could feel the contours of the body of the person behind me; I knew he was male and wearing a belt, and considerably taller than I am, and I realized with a sting that my bracelet, a wide metal ring open on one side, had caught on someone and was now almost stabbing into my arm. A string of teenies who had linked into a chain were slowly torn from one another. Thankfully, the girl’s escalating cries, bordering on hysteria, of “I can’t get any air! I can’t breathe!” only marginally preceded the eventual release of pressure and we stumbled forward as if air expelled from a balloon.
But it was worth it. The ideal location valiantly defended by our friends was indeed fantastic, as close as you could get to the stage without hitting the mosh pit, and still, as we were on the hill, providing a good view in the stadium-seating-like array. The only problem was that we had to actually stand on said hill, which wasn’t level and allowed no room for sitting down or for moving in any direction besides vertical, and after the arduous fight to our spot, we downed our cokes and beers long before the show began. In an attempt to entertain us, the producers sent a series of beach balls into the crowd which we were supposed to keep afloat; the crowd, in turn, countered with oblong balloons floating lazily from here to there, made of condoms. Someone up and to the left had a Spongebob balloon which eventually escaped, and the entire crowd turned to watched Mr Squarepants floating lazily into the stratosphere, his little foil arm twitching in the breeze as if he were waving us goodbye. He probably had an appointment with the hot air balloon taking off in the background.
It’s something incredible to see so many people in one place. Some estimates say over 40 000 were gathered there; as far as the eye could see there were people, fading into little ecstatic dots. And because the performer – Peter Fox, former frontman of the German hip-hop band Seeed from Berlin – was well known, he didn’t have to convince the crowd. Religion is perhaps the opiate of the masses, but concerts are more likely the adderol of the masses. Hands stretched towards the stage, bobbing with the beat, in the typical gesture which for us at least was the only movement possible in such a tight space.
The band itself consisted of Mr Fox, three backup singers (two ladies and a tattooed man who looked like he moonlighted in movies like the Fast and the Furious), a random guy who danced around with a monkey mask on (makes sense for Peter Fox), and a row of drummers who were probably horribly happy to not also have to wear a monkey mask. And the cool thing was that all of these people, throughout much of the show, were dancing in unison. The drummers were there for both percussion and show, spinning sticks, making shapes with them and meanwhile dancing along. It was like the mutant lovechild of marching band, line dancing and hip hop music.
After two hours of frenetic jumping up and down on the side of the hill, we were subjected to two “opening” groups who were actually “ending” groups, fortified with slurpees and went on our way.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Into the wild...ish
42 years ago, my uncle went to Liberia in the Peace Corps. He built a school and a market and taught English to Liberians in a small town far from anywhere. He had a choice between cockroaches or spiders and chose the former. This year, he returned, to find new buildings to replace those destroyed in the civil war, and to find that in many respects, not much has changed. The buildings he built were still there, the school he taught at as well, and his former host family still lived in the same house. Only everything and everyone was 42 years older. Why is it that the West has seen rock n roll develop, the cold war grow and die, social revolution, the end of segregation, bad hairdos, disco, color TV, portable computers and adjustable-rate mortgages?
One year and nine weeks ago, I left the US for Europe, bearing with me a suitcase full of memories, a lifetime’s upbringing and the teary but genuine blessing of my parents, for the third time. And again I have returned, but this time not to live but only to visit, and I am back again on a plane. The map tells me I’m somewhere over Illinois between Peoria and somewhere else, and the cloud-filled patchwork below me offers no further clues. The map continuously rotates: Illinois, Midwest, USA, Illinois, Midwest, USA. I suppose it all depends on your context. The answer to “who are you?” or “where are you from?” depends on the interlocutor and the context: for some people, the country suffices; for others, I must specify my state; others will want to know my hometown. You decide how much meaning is in the answer. The more I travel and the more I live abroad, the more important it is, I realize, to actually be “from” somewhere, even if that’s not where I currently live. I saw a DVD on Bob Dylan, a documentary titled “No direction home”. It well explained his rambling soul, how he left his childhood behind with a harmonica and a guitar, and how he changed a generation (or several). A part of me recognizes in him my own wandering spirit. Still, despite all that he has achieved, I feel a bit sorry for him for having felt so little connection to his roots that he changed his given name.
I don’t know if I’ve gained much outside perspective on the US for having been abroad. Certainly I see the follies of our politics, the defects consistently and insistently highlighted by our detractors, but I recognize the positives that Hollywood ignores or doesn’t glorify. I think, though, that the widest divide isn’t between me and my European friends and acquaintances based on our nationalities, but rather the vast chasm between those of us with opportunities and those of us without. There is poverty and despair in the US as well; we don’t all need to gallivant off to Africa to find people with barely enough to eat and scarce hope of a better future. And for all of the angry young men facing 60% or higher unemployment in Africa, in the Middle East and elsewhere, there are high-schools full of self-destructive teenagers in the middle of their respective personal Angst, squandering the opportunities we were granted, unasked for and unappreciated, wrecking our second or third car, drinking away our youths and our livers, cutting classes and wasting time. For all of those youngsters who waste their parents’ money on those repeated tries at college after partying precluded passing, there are kids of the same age who don’t get to go to school. They end up having a family and working at Walmart and just scraping by, and they give up far more dreams than we can ever waste with our selfishness.
As we were parking the truck, perched precariously on the outside corner of a dirt road where, stepping out, you could gaze down at several hundred meters of not very much. It makes you check the parking brake just one more time. On all sides of us loomed hills blossoming into mountains, rugged, craggy things interrupted by a verdant valley. A road leading to the quarry gashed the opposite hillside, and for our part, we were faced with a trail in two directions: ‘up’ and ‘down’. On this side of the Rockies, snow and rainfall – and particularly this summer – evoke a startling change from the Eastern slope; instead of scrubby forests and sparse undergrowth, the entire forest was carpeted by a thick underbrush of grass and wildflowers. Tall and slender pines were interspersed with our one and only kind of leafy tree, the aspen, which is all part of one organism and turns a beautiful gold color in the autumn.
I had forgotten how quickly the storms roll in. Outsiders think we’re paranoid for worrying about the weather on a perfectly clear day, but as they say, “if you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait half an hour.” Usually a couple of people die each year from lightning strikes from the violent, black clouds. It can start with little puffy clouds on the horizon, not much and not too threatening, but within a few minutes they gather and darken. Standing on the ridgeline, watching the storm come in, sends your heart, mind and legs racing to find a safe place. The thunder is already echoing, rumbling long and low when the storm is far off, and cracking like a whip, simultaneous with the flash, when it is upon you. It begins with the gusting wind, and you can see the sheets of rain across the valley. You know your turn is up, you know you’ll be drenched, and you start looking for places to hide. It may pour in one valley and completely skip the other one; you could see hailstones the size of marbles or golf balls, followed by rain and brilliant sunshine. Sometimes it’s over quickly, and sometimes it sets in for a pounding.
Near Crested Butte we found a trail drenched in wildflowers. They were everywhere and in all colors, reds, pinks, purples, whites, yellows, blues, all across the hillsides. Europe, at least the bits I’ve mostly been to, lacks the riotousness of a natural wood. Here there are no trees planted in rows, no manicured, landscaped horticultures interspersed with marble statues. Here there is a craggy rock face higher than Mont Blanc, there a waterfall and a hidden valley, and everywhere the signs of a living ecosystem.
I’m happy to report that Boulder is just as much filled with strange people as ever. In addition to street performers of the usual ilk (as in, playing actual instruments or some kind of performance), we have the wheelchair pirate, the girl in the gorilla suit, and the beggar who only accepts donations that are stapled to his body. With a stapler. Everything seems to be health food, people are snobby about the beer, and there are almost as many roadbikes as on the Tour de France. Dreadlocks and tattoos abound, the coffee shops are full of wannabe poets and musicians with the light scent of self-righteousness and political leftism.
One year and nine weeks ago, I left the US for Europe, bearing with me a suitcase full of memories, a lifetime’s upbringing and the teary but genuine blessing of my parents, for the third time. And again I have returned, but this time not to live but only to visit, and I am back again on a plane. The map tells me I’m somewhere over Illinois between Peoria and somewhere else, and the cloud-filled patchwork below me offers no further clues. The map continuously rotates: Illinois, Midwest, USA, Illinois, Midwest, USA. I suppose it all depends on your context. The answer to “who are you?” or “where are you from?” depends on the interlocutor and the context: for some people, the country suffices; for others, I must specify my state; others will want to know my hometown. You decide how much meaning is in the answer. The more I travel and the more I live abroad, the more important it is, I realize, to actually be “from” somewhere, even if that’s not where I currently live. I saw a DVD on Bob Dylan, a documentary titled “No direction home”. It well explained his rambling soul, how he left his childhood behind with a harmonica and a guitar, and how he changed a generation (or several). A part of me recognizes in him my own wandering spirit. Still, despite all that he has achieved, I feel a bit sorry for him for having felt so little connection to his roots that he changed his given name.
I don’t know if I’ve gained much outside perspective on the US for having been abroad. Certainly I see the follies of our politics, the defects consistently and insistently highlighted by our detractors, but I recognize the positives that Hollywood ignores or doesn’t glorify. I think, though, that the widest divide isn’t between me and my European friends and acquaintances based on our nationalities, but rather the vast chasm between those of us with opportunities and those of us without. There is poverty and despair in the US as well; we don’t all need to gallivant off to Africa to find people with barely enough to eat and scarce hope of a better future. And for all of the angry young men facing 60% or higher unemployment in Africa, in the Middle East and elsewhere, there are high-schools full of self-destructive teenagers in the middle of their respective personal Angst, squandering the opportunities we were granted, unasked for and unappreciated, wrecking our second or third car, drinking away our youths and our livers, cutting classes and wasting time. For all of those youngsters who waste their parents’ money on those repeated tries at college after partying precluded passing, there are kids of the same age who don’t get to go to school. They end up having a family and working at Walmart and just scraping by, and they give up far more dreams than we can ever waste with our selfishness.
As we were parking the truck, perched precariously on the outside corner of a dirt road where, stepping out, you could gaze down at several hundred meters of not very much. It makes you check the parking brake just one more time. On all sides of us loomed hills blossoming into mountains, rugged, craggy things interrupted by a verdant valley. A road leading to the quarry gashed the opposite hillside, and for our part, we were faced with a trail in two directions: ‘up’ and ‘down’. On this side of the Rockies, snow and rainfall – and particularly this summer – evoke a startling change from the Eastern slope; instead of scrubby forests and sparse undergrowth, the entire forest was carpeted by a thick underbrush of grass and wildflowers. Tall and slender pines were interspersed with our one and only kind of leafy tree, the aspen, which is all part of one organism and turns a beautiful gold color in the autumn.
I had forgotten how quickly the storms roll in. Outsiders think we’re paranoid for worrying about the weather on a perfectly clear day, but as they say, “if you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait half an hour.” Usually a couple of people die each year from lightning strikes from the violent, black clouds. It can start with little puffy clouds on the horizon, not much and not too threatening, but within a few minutes they gather and darken. Standing on the ridgeline, watching the storm come in, sends your heart, mind and legs racing to find a safe place. The thunder is already echoing, rumbling long and low when the storm is far off, and cracking like a whip, simultaneous with the flash, when it is upon you. It begins with the gusting wind, and you can see the sheets of rain across the valley. You know your turn is up, you know you’ll be drenched, and you start looking for places to hide. It may pour in one valley and completely skip the other one; you could see hailstones the size of marbles or golf balls, followed by rain and brilliant sunshine. Sometimes it’s over quickly, and sometimes it sets in for a pounding.
Near Crested Butte we found a trail drenched in wildflowers. They were everywhere and in all colors, reds, pinks, purples, whites, yellows, blues, all across the hillsides. Europe, at least the bits I’ve mostly been to, lacks the riotousness of a natural wood. Here there are no trees planted in rows, no manicured, landscaped horticultures interspersed with marble statues. Here there is a craggy rock face higher than Mont Blanc, there a waterfall and a hidden valley, and everywhere the signs of a living ecosystem.
I’m happy to report that Boulder is just as much filled with strange people as ever. In addition to street performers of the usual ilk (as in, playing actual instruments or some kind of performance), we have the wheelchair pirate, the girl in the gorilla suit, and the beggar who only accepts donations that are stapled to his body. With a stapler. Everything seems to be health food, people are snobby about the beer, and there are almost as many roadbikes as on the Tour de France. Dreadlocks and tattoos abound, the coffee shops are full of wannabe poets and musicians with the light scent of self-righteousness and political leftism.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
I brought you typhus
I’ll be taking bets about how long I can bear my 5 shirts and 5 skirts before I detest everything and throw it all away. Nevertheless, for the next seven months, I will be able to carry everything I own on my person at one time, which is the kind of feat you can’t really put on your resume but is exceptionally useful if you’re on the road. Once again, as with every other time I’ve moved (out / across countries and continents), I realize just how much random shit I’ve acquired the last year. I’d been happily squirreling it away, bringing back from every trip to Germany some utensils or shoes or something I’d purchased, along with the last bag I’d stored with someone months or years ago. At least now, everything I own is either with me now or in Geneva, which helps as it is no longer scattered across continents and countries.
It’s like camping: once you’re out there with just what you can carry on your back, you realize just how little you really need. You can get by with very little, and the less you have the easier your life is on the road. However, there is a difference between getting by and doing well, and just because it is possible to rotate among three outfits, that gets old quite quickly.
Happily, I can now announce that I am officially transient again. I am, as the French say, sans domicile fixe (s.d.f.), with no fixed residence. I am not homeless in the literal sense, as I have lots of homes in lots of places, those to which I now return and those to which I have not yet ventured, and in any case I’m not on the streets. I am not heimatslos in the German sense of being without a home (think of a sort of primal concept of ‘home’ rather than ‘the house in which I live’). I just have no residence, and currently receive post in three countries but don’t currently live in any of them.
I’ve been trying hard to figure out what exactly makes me unable to live anywhere for long. Perhaps ‘unable’ is not the word. It’s not really ‘push factors’ that drive me away, but rather the lure of faraway places that inspires me to pack it all up and move out. If I have the time or a particular opportunity, as with both my current voyage to Asia and my previous sojourn in Egypt, the unknown calls to me.
People sometimes ask me what I hate about the States that I don’t want to live there. To make it clear, while there are things I dislike about the States – just as there are things I dislike about Germany or Switzerland or Egypt or anywhere else I’ve lived or will live – it is not out of hate of the place that I leave. On the contrary, being abroad makes me feel a bit more connected to “the country I know best” as I am confronted with stereotypes, people’s impressions gained on their voyages and invariably shared with me upon learning where I’m from, or people’s frustrations or enthusiasm for our country. Coming from the US is a bit like living in a glass house – our culture and politics are spread everywhere, and everyone feels somewhat entitled to an opinion about it all. Everyone has an opinion about the US, I would dare to suppose, for better or for worse. While I have met many people whose conception of the US is based on bad Hollywood movies and Bush’s polemic foreign policy, I have also met with an exceptional number of people who are interested in and know better than I US politics, current popular culture, history, literature, or anything else you care to know.
Going through security at customs was kind of like shopping at Aldi – everything has to be placed as onto the belt, you are quickly shooed through the scanners, and as soon as possible you have to recollect your liquids, put on your shoes, find the loose change and contents of your pockets, and get the heck out of the way before everything falls off the back end. But at least it went quickly. Passport control was manned by an ill-tempered serf whose sole purpose in life was to rag on people who don’t move quickly enough, towing children and suitcases, to wait in the proper line to have their passport stamped. All the while, on the TV screens above the massive lines shuffling resignedly but quickly towards the blue-uniformed officers, US propaganda videos loop showing smiling families and individuals, of appropriate ethnic and cultural distribution, interspersed with US landmarks and clichéd cowboys and NYC skyline shots, culminating in a series of grinning people repeating “welcome”. It’s all a bit frightening.
All the while I’m trying hard to babysit my “Petri dish”, a typhus vaccine which is supposed to be refrigerated. Apparently airplanes don’t really have refrigerators (?? Makes no sense to me, but okeee), so I ended up with a barf bag full of ice at one point in which to place the tiny box. The ice proceeded to melt everywhere and soak the packaging, but kept the vaccine cold. The bar in Dulles gave me a little plastic tray with ice cubes which I refreshed on the plane to Denver. Instead of normal take-off worries, I was worried that my little plastic tray under my seat would slide back and douse the feet of the passanger behind me in icewater. Luckily, my typhus made it home intact, swimmingly happily in its basin of water. I’ve mistreated it enough, I’ll probably get typhus itself instead of immunity against it….
It’s like camping: once you’re out there with just what you can carry on your back, you realize just how little you really need. You can get by with very little, and the less you have the easier your life is on the road. However, there is a difference between getting by and doing well, and just because it is possible to rotate among three outfits, that gets old quite quickly.
Happily, I can now announce that I am officially transient again. I am, as the French say, sans domicile fixe (s.d.f.), with no fixed residence. I am not homeless in the literal sense, as I have lots of homes in lots of places, those to which I now return and those to which I have not yet ventured, and in any case I’m not on the streets. I am not heimatslos in the German sense of being without a home (think of a sort of primal concept of ‘home’ rather than ‘the house in which I live’). I just have no residence, and currently receive post in three countries but don’t currently live in any of them.
I’ve been trying hard to figure out what exactly makes me unable to live anywhere for long. Perhaps ‘unable’ is not the word. It’s not really ‘push factors’ that drive me away, but rather the lure of faraway places that inspires me to pack it all up and move out. If I have the time or a particular opportunity, as with both my current voyage to Asia and my previous sojourn in Egypt, the unknown calls to me.
People sometimes ask me what I hate about the States that I don’t want to live there. To make it clear, while there are things I dislike about the States – just as there are things I dislike about Germany or Switzerland or Egypt or anywhere else I’ve lived or will live – it is not out of hate of the place that I leave. On the contrary, being abroad makes me feel a bit more connected to “the country I know best” as I am confronted with stereotypes, people’s impressions gained on their voyages and invariably shared with me upon learning where I’m from, or people’s frustrations or enthusiasm for our country. Coming from the US is a bit like living in a glass house – our culture and politics are spread everywhere, and everyone feels somewhat entitled to an opinion about it all. Everyone has an opinion about the US, I would dare to suppose, for better or for worse. While I have met many people whose conception of the US is based on bad Hollywood movies and Bush’s polemic foreign policy, I have also met with an exceptional number of people who are interested in and know better than I US politics, current popular culture, history, literature, or anything else you care to know.
Going through security at customs was kind of like shopping at Aldi – everything has to be placed as onto the belt, you are quickly shooed through the scanners, and as soon as possible you have to recollect your liquids, put on your shoes, find the loose change and contents of your pockets, and get the heck out of the way before everything falls off the back end. But at least it went quickly. Passport control was manned by an ill-tempered serf whose sole purpose in life was to rag on people who don’t move quickly enough, towing children and suitcases, to wait in the proper line to have their passport stamped. All the while, on the TV screens above the massive lines shuffling resignedly but quickly towards the blue-uniformed officers, US propaganda videos loop showing smiling families and individuals, of appropriate ethnic and cultural distribution, interspersed with US landmarks and clichéd cowboys and NYC skyline shots, culminating in a series of grinning people repeating “welcome”. It’s all a bit frightening.
All the while I’m trying hard to babysit my “Petri dish”, a typhus vaccine which is supposed to be refrigerated. Apparently airplanes don’t really have refrigerators (?? Makes no sense to me, but okeee), so I ended up with a barf bag full of ice at one point in which to place the tiny box. The ice proceeded to melt everywhere and soak the packaging, but kept the vaccine cold. The bar in Dulles gave me a little plastic tray with ice cubes which I refreshed on the plane to Denver. Instead of normal take-off worries, I was worried that my little plastic tray under my seat would slide back and douse the feet of the passanger behind me in icewater. Luckily, my typhus made it home intact, swimmingly happily in its basin of water. I’ve mistreated it enough, I’ll probably get typhus itself instead of immunity against it….
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