TSA Archives - Ten Thousand Shrines

A View from the Shore

With a couple hours to kill, we meandered to the info booth, and asked for suggestions. “You could go to the waterfront. There’s free shuttles just out those doors.” Between that and sitting around in the damned airport, the next minute saw us awaiting a shuttle, and we were soon under way.

Food for Thought

We wandered through the airport, weary, disgruntled, and in search of sustenance. Everyone was fat, white, and loud.

Culture Shock (and Awe)

We reached our connecting terminal, and were ushered without explanations into a series of confusing lines. However, as I surmised from the unwelcoming red letters, domestic connections involving luggage needed to be made 45 minutes in advance.

Fortress America

Stepping off the plane, we were ushered to the gates of Fortress America. Amazingly, as we gathered into two immense, concentration-camp-esque ques down a seemingly endless airport hallway, an airport staff woman with a Chinese accent so thick you could fry dumplings in it, continuously shouted into the crowd, “Don’t worry! Be happy! You’re in America now!”

Cultural limbo / Winning points / Magical thing

Headachey, and very tired. Excitement for our arrival mingles with delirious travel stupor.

Now that we’ve been on this plane for six hours or so, it has dawned on me that international flights are essentially a species of cultural limbo. Multiple languages, multiple cultures, multiple peoples all homogenized into the experience of jet travel. Neither here nor there. Weird.

Not to be tired / Like zombies / Dream and dream

3:57am: Catch MAX train to airport
4:27am: Eat banana and dry cereal. Attempt not to be tired. Fail.
4:44am: Arrive at airport. Find United Airlines. Proceed through check-in rigamarole.