Monday, July 5, 2010

Airport/plane scenes, Guåhan-style

Scene 1
Whereupon the plane taxis to the gate, and over the intercom you hear, "Auntie, can you please sit down? The fasten seatbelt sign is still on."

Scene 2
Whereupon waiting in the U.S. Citizen/Green Card line (note to self: always take Line 41, which is only for U.S. passport holders, which therefore moves at least twice as fast as the Green Card one), the guy coming back from training at Fort Benning looks at the quicker moving Line 41.

He says, "That line's moving a little slow because there's a youth soccer team who played in Korea. See that groups of kids up front?"

And I say, "Yeah, Korea--that's cool."

And he says, "Yeah, that guy right there is my nephew."

And about ten minutes later, looking at the old dude holding up our line, the same observant Fort Benning trainee notices it's the mayor of Mangilao.

Scene 3
Walking back to the car, I run into the spokeperson for one of the utilities, and we chat about her half-marathon in Australia for about five minutes before her ride pulls up.

As someone who has traveled extensively throughout the world, I can attest that contrary to Friendman's claim that it (the world) gets smaller and flatter, it is only at Guåhan's airport where I can own such small and special experiences.