the terminal
i have a fascination with airports, but more specifically, international airports where the immigration authority stamp your passport, as if declaring the beginning or the end of one's trip. it is a place that i find to be so tactile. in fact, it's a fascination which i think began when i was 5 years old, wiping my slacks on the wall of naia 1, thinking it was a mop and in the process, dirtying my pants (and almost ripping it apart!). seeing planes take-off or land is enough to bring any child to a dreamy place, and yet everything is real. the physicality of the place is indeed astounding. it is a place limited by concrete, metal, glass or a combination of the three and yet it encompasses a large portion of humanity, a space filled with people of different nationalities. it's as if the world fit in on area less than the size of one homogenous city. it is a building where people have not really 'landed' or 'taken off', a sort of in between.
it is a gate where i find time stop (especially going to different time zones). it is where waiting becomes an accepted activity. it is sometimes where gripping moments are further hightened or at the other extreme, numbness amplified. it is where excitement is being kept carefully inside a glass jar and awaiting to be opened at the other end. it is where people tend to talk easily with others while waiting for their flights.
in fact, in my last few trips, i've met some interesting people: a canadian who was heading over to the philippines, specifically in isabela to have a few days with her in-laws family (hkg); a couple of ofw's coming back to the philippines for a vacation and how there is real hardship in being away from family (cmb and sin); and a filipino-chinese muslim who refused to fume at the security gate when he was thoroughly frisked and refrisked and asked to empty the contents of his carry-on luggage (sfo). it is a place where i would not probably not have a chance to be and talk with these kinds of people.
the airport is indeed a fascinating place brimming with stories. it is tactile, real. and i'm glad that it's part of my travels.
Notes From Paris
I found this in an old archive (I used to host a "conference" for an ISP when I was writing for the Star). Memories...4 August 2002
I know I've been remiss in my posting duties, but I think I have a good enough reason...I've been in Paris for almost 6 weeks now. Then again, that fact alone would make you think I have enough fodder for this conference, but then again internet doesn't come cheap in this neck of the woods (1,5 euro for an hour of frantically sending off e-mail on an AZERTY keyboard).
I've always wanted to live in Paris, even for a short while, and by some miracle I'm doing just that. But you have to be careful what you ask for, 'cause you just might get it. After a week of ooh-ing and aah-ing at the sights you suddenly notice the smells (better yet, the stinks) of the City of Lights. Suddenly the Metro loses all its convenient charm; you start watching out for low-flying pigeons that might drop a bomb on your newly shampooed hair, and pray that you don't run into yet another rude Frenchman speaking gibberish and making faces. A meal is easily 500 bucks down the drain (a cheap one at that!), there's no airconditioning, and the blisters on my feet have gone forth and multiplied. I weep for San Mig Light and make do with cheap (but good) French wine; I miss our beaches (Nice and St Tropez were nice, but even Puerto Galera could give them an ass-whipping); I miss the malls and movies and English cable TV.
Then again, the people I've met here (most of whom aren't French) make up for all I long for. I've made friends from all over the planet, because after all misery loves company and we all try to cheer each other up.
I'm a little more comfortable now since classes are over and I'm house sitting for a friend
(NB: The Princess himself!) who has cable and a real bathroom and DSL. Plus I get to spend more time with my roommates - two friends from school who are both tall guys capable of changing the fuse that just blew, doing the laundry, and eating my
adobo. And the apartment comes with a lovely albino boxer who likes to drag me down the street at 7 a.m. and who keeps hogging the bed. These are the things I'll miss most about Paris, and suddenly I don't regret asking to come live here after all.
Happy Birthday...
...to the outsidebound, oddventuring mind behind the term "wandersluts." My EIC "son" (yes, I had him when I was 3) and my fairy (oops, pardon the pun he he) godfather when it comes to making my dream trips come true. National Geographic, here he comes - remember us when you are in paradise (and put in a good word while you're at it!).
You're a good man, Jeryc Garcia - cheers!
Journeys
Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is before our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, and new thoughts, new places. Introspective reflections that might otherwise be liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand. Thinking improves when parts of the mind are given other tasks - charged with listening to music, for example, or following a line of trees. The music or the view distracts for a time that nervous, censorious, practical part of the mind which is inclined to shut down when it notices something difficult emerging in consciousness, and which runs scared of memories, longings and introspective or original ideas, preferring instead the administrative and the impersonal. - Alain de Botton,
"The Art of Travel"Couldn't have set it better - couldn't agree more. And then he starts to talk about train rides as "the best aid to thought"...then again, it depends what kind of train. Amtrak across the Midwest, particularly in the viewing car, is like watching a moving gallery of flat landscapes. Eurail is OK too if you can stand stinky travel companions. But my memories of the PNR coffins on rails leave a lot to be desired in terms of romantic Orient Express-like travel. And you couldn't pay me to take on that Amazing Race challenge on India's version of the LRT.
