Airport + airplane stories
I’ve been binge-listening to back episodes of Black Box Down while other podcasts slow down over the holidays. I’ve enjoyed reading Admiral Cloudberg’s write-ups of airplane crashes on Medium over the past year or so, and this podcast scratches the same itch in a different way. I highly recommend it! And it’s got me thinking about what strange spaces airports and airplanes can be, and remembering adventures we’ve had over the years.
In 2005 when I flew from Damascus to Portland for my sister’s wedding (DAM-CDG-ATL-PDX), alone and 5 months pregnant, I was questioned by…someone?…while in line to board the CDG-ATL airplane. An Official Man inspected my documents and asked me questions that he seemed to want to make sure corroborated what he had in front of him. He also spoke to me briefly in Arabic - again, seemingly to check how well the information I gave him matched up to what he knew. To this day I have no idea who that person was or why he talked to me. But I wasn’t detained anywhere on that journey so I guess I passed whatever test it was!
The last time we, as a family, bought the absolute cheapest tickets to get where we were going was in 2010 when we flew back to Ithaca from Egypt. We flew Cairo-London-Newark-Ithaca, with something like a 12-hour overnight layover in Newark. But with the way immigration/customs and baggage worked, when we entered the US in Newark, we ended up outside of security and had to spend the night in front of a closed ticket counter with our two absolutely wired kids. Ever since then, when needed, we have opted to pay slightly more money for an itinerary that doesn’t make us want to murder each other.
Soon after 9/11 when I was flying from PDX to SLC, TSA confiscated a tiny pair of scissors I had in my carry-on. It was my Grandpa’s from WW2 and so they let me run over and mail it to myself from a post office in the airport (how can this be real??). But it never arrived and I am sad/mad about it to this day. The blade on those scissors cannot have been longer than my thumbnail. Hmph.
One of the best things I have ever eaten in my life was this summer at PDX when Jeremy and I got breakfast sandwiches from the airport Burgerville while we waited for our flight back to Finland. Bacon, egg, Tillamook cheese, and ARUGULA on an English muffin.
In 2006 when flying internationally just after the liquids ban had been instated, I got through a certain airport’s security with a Camelbak completely full of water.
The only time I have ever seen the movie Avatar was on an airplane.
I have blocked out a lot of terrible hours of flying with small children, but a small memory of a flight with baby Miriam from Vienna to Amman via Beirut (after SLC-JFK-Vienna flights earlier that “day”) haunts me. We were on our way to help run a BYU study abroad program for the summer of 2006 and most of them were on the same itinerary as us. So unlike most flights, when you will never see those people again no matter how much your kid screams, I was VERY MUCH going to see these people again. Miriam was extremely overtired and overstimulated and overtraveled and was making it known to all the airplane passengers. I distinctly remember trying to nurse her to calm her down and putting a blanket over not just my boob but also my face because I just wanted to disappear. (I did not disappear but thankfully the students were nice people and never mentioned it.)
My favorite small airport is Turku, midsize is PDX, and large is DXB Terminal 3.
On my very first solo international flight from PDX to Tokyo (via LAX), I left my passport and ticket behind on a little counter right after checking in. Thankfully, my dad was still with me and noticed but I will never forget the look of “did that just happen and is my daughter going to survive on her own” that crossed his face (I was fine!). I also remember leaving my purse on my seat when I disembarked from a SLC-PDX flight in 2000ish. Fortunately, my SIL was seated behind me and spotted it.
Which reminds me! This summer when we were coming back to Finland, Sterling fell asleep on the SEA-AMS leg and amid the hassle of waking him up/carrying him to the next leg of the journey, we left his backpack (with an iPad inside!) on the plane. We didn’t realize it until we were at the gate for the next flight and started trying to figure out what to do to get it back. Thankfully, another Official Man came to the rescue and paged us to the counter to give us the backpack. He did not have any kind of uniform on, but maybe one of those flourescent reflective vests? I was so flustered and tired that I didn’t ask exactly how it all came about but he said something about seeing Sterling’s name written on duct tape inside the backpack and figuring it out from there.
In 2006 or 2007, after an extremely chaotic check-in process, we left a carry-on suitcase with no identifying information on/in it at the airport in Amman. It made it back to us in Tucson, unaccompanied and completely intact, within a week.
The best/smoothest flight I ever had with kids was when we flew to Amman with 1.5yo Miriam in 2007. Royal Jordanian got us in the air, dimmed the lights, and didn’t mess around with extraneous announcements over the speakers. Miriam and I spread out over a row of four and slept almost the whole overnight flight.
The best flight I ever had without kids was when I flew SEA-DXB in 2015 on my own on Emirates and they upgraded me to business class.
This summer, my sister gave Sterling a huge Grogu/Baby Yoda squishmallow. I smooshed it into our one suitcase we wanted to check from Idaho Falls to PDX but it was slightly overweight at check-in, so I opened it up right in the airport to rebalance some things and Grogu just OOZED out. The check-in agent noticed (how could you not) and said, “oh, Baby Yoda is considered to be a pillow” and so Sterling got to CARRY him onto the PLANE for FREE. It was absolutely glorious and he brought joy to everyone who saw him.
