Concerning Airports and the People in Them

I've always enjoyed flying. I love walking between gates and guessing where everyone is going. I love the feeling of the plane taking off, when the g-forces push you into the chair.

I don't, however, love babies on planes. Or, for that matter, men who apparently can't sit still and therefore slam themselves back and forth in their chairs. Sir. This is not a rollercoaster.

Briele's and my flight to London, besides the crazed baby and the dude who seemed determined to get my dinner all over my lap, went really well. Our layover in JFK proved that I've been spoiled with DIA. Would it kill New York to have a couple of bathrooms that both have working stall locks AND unclogged toilets?

We were supposed to meet Stephanie in Victoria Station, so after we melted in the sauna that was customs for non-EU passports, I went into business mode to find the Tube entrance. Of course, this meant that I went so much into business mode that I walked right past Steph in the arrivals area. Oops. I promise I missed her. I just didn't *see* her.

We decided to skip a hostel for the night, since it's kind of ridiculous to pay £17 per person when you have a 6:30 flight out of a new airport.

Speaking of new airports, Gatwick is....tiny. we couldn't go through security until 4 a.m., and we got there around 10:30 p.m. Sooooo what do you do when you're at an airport 6+ hours early? You curl up with 40 other people in a waiting area overlooking the lobby. And then you pretend to be able to sleep.

It was kind of like letting a chair put you in an awkward yoga position, then falling asleep because you couldn't do anything else. But you didn't wake up feeling relaxed...you woke up feeling like a year of your life had been sucked out through your spine.

The final airport we arrived in was in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Our flight was half an hour early. If you want to see something amusing, drop a plane-full of people into an airport with about four total check-in desks, then give them no one to pick them up and no trains for an hour.

Hint: even the expression for "Da heck am I supposed to do now?" is pretty much internationally recognized.

And then....we encountered trains.