Sunday, August 16, 2009

UNCORRELATED AGGREGATED OBSERVATIONS OF GLOBAL TRAVEL THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH MEDICINE BECAUSE I JUST GOT HERE

There was a young woman at LAX balancing a cup of bright, pink-purple Starbucks beverage on top of a flat box, and naturally it fell off and splatted on the ground while she was in line for boarding - SPLAT. I felt a little sorry for her, but also sensed that to think, yup, saw that one coming, would be needlessly snooty and schadenfreude-ly. Turned out I sat between her and another novice traveler for the LAX to Philadelphia leg of the flight. Took care with the beverage service.

Maybe I'm just imagining things, but there seemed to be tons of children on this flight, more than I've ever seen in international travel. All manner of children, of all ages, googly infants, toddlers running head first, tweens all knees and elbows, disaffected teens too worldly-wise for this trip with mom and dad. The ultra-orthodox Jews encourage large families, but these folks just seemed like generic, secular Jews. With tons o' kids.

Being somewhere this consciously religious makes me again wish that I belonged to a religion with a cool uniform. There are a lot of imposing looking people in dark suits, in black robes, cassocks. The closest I've come to a religious uniform was a church camp t-shirt. Lime green is not an imposing color.

I've always loved the occasions of spontaneous applause that sometimes break out when a plane lands. This outburst of gratitude and appreciation for landing, for the flight crew, makes me feel like a part of a community, a community that has traveled together, a community that spills ill-placed beverages, and that's okay.

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