Airports

2:08pm at the Miami terminal

So I’m sitting in the Miami terminal waiting for my flight to Lima, eating some gummy worms, and about to start reading that book that everyone is going crazy about: Eat, Pray, Love. Except I get an extra gold star because I’m reading it Spanish! Yeah! Come Reza Ama! I can’t tell if I bought it in Spanish because there were no more English copies, or if it was because I feel I should to further soak my mind in Spanish while I’m in Lima.

Anywho, should be interesting.

I decided today that airports are pretty extreme places. They are either wonderful, or scary as heck.

Why are they scary as heck, you would ask? Well, lemme tell you. The following shall explain:

•TSA

•Being stared at by TSA

•Going through immigrations in the Miami airport

•Being harshly questioned by the mean immigrations man

•Being chased by the other mean immigrations man because I am going the wrong way
down the labyrinth which they call an airport

•Not knowing what to do when the customs man asks me if I have alcohol in my bag, when indeed there is quite a bit of Peruvian wine

•Freaking out when I admit that there is

•Freaking out more when he asks me if I’m underage

•Being underage

•Hoping he doesn’t drag me away and arrest me forever

•He doesn’t

•Anyway

•Carrying 5 bottles of aerosol mosquito repellent spray in your suitcase and forgetting that aerosol = explosive. You might as well have put an atom bomb in there.

•Holding up the whole security line because my power rangers’ beeper went off in my bag…and apparently that means danger. (ok so that was when I was 5, but still)

•Realizing you forgot your neck pillow, which means awkwardly trying to snuggle with the airplane window and developing a neck cramp in the process. Dang it!

•But overall, going off alone and leaving your comfort zone. And knowing that the next 4 months will be lived in pure uncertainty.

Ok so let’s balance that out. Now you ask, what makes airports such wonderful places? Lemme tell ya.

•The fact that ‘Airport’ is just another name for ‘Giant Food Court’, with a few airplanes around it.

•The cool little lady behind the counter that starts talking to me in Spanish and reminds me of how much I miss the language, and the little old ladies that speak it.

•Discovering that Swedish Fish now come in a variety of colors. Thanks airport bookstore/candy place.

•Laughing while you watch people hover impatiently around the boarding terminal and wondering why there is a strange need to get on the plane as fast as you can.

•Watching people try to stuff a mattress and a dead yak into the overhead compartments (name that reference)

•Knowing that everyone around you is going on, or coming from some kind of adventure.

•Realizing that you are one of those people who are going on or coming from some kind of adventure.

:)