I think I'm obsessed with airports.
On my recent trip to the US, I flew through Amsterdam, which took me through Schiphol, the main airport in the Netherlands. When I first arrived, at 7 am, Schiphol was all but deserted, although anything would appear deserted after the streets of Delhi.
A quick tour through the main concourse convinced me that the denizens of the Netherlands all lived in blue and white porcelain houses, eating nothing but cheese and occasionally salami, surrounded by tulips.
I ate a panini that contained nothing but Gouda cheese and mayonnaise, a combination about as unappealing as it sounds, and rejected a bottle of "fresh fruit frappe" because it reminded me, in its color and texture, of the fake blood that vampires drink on that HBO show that I once used to watch mainly because it featured Alexander Skaarsgaard. I did get a "cafe au lait," which arrived in a sadly tiny paper cup. Apparently "cafe au lait" means different things in Amsterdam and America. The sugar, meanwhile, came in tiny white tablets that looked either like a diet supplement or an exotic club drug. Counting on the latter, I stirred a couple of these tablets into my little cafe au lait.
Just kidding. I did not get high in the Amsterdam International Airport. But I did ask myself: what the hell does the word 'panini' even mean? Does anyone know? Is it just a New Age way of saying 'sandwich'?
I did notice that there were some strange-looking feather masks in a shop labeled only "Accessorize!" and that the tulip store sold knick knacks sorted under the helpful headings "Women," "Child," and "Adult." A Rijks Museum booth stood behind a piece of modern art that resembled nothing so much as the scale models of diseased bronchioles that one of my former doctors used to keep in his office.
I also had a lot of time to ask myself questions, like 'Why am I so obsessed with airports?'
This all began about three years ago when I first moved to India. I would often arrive at the airport early. Unlike pretty much everywhere else I go in India, airports remain relatively uncrowded. In most major cities, the airports are new, and still kinda look that way. In other words, airports reminded me of home, which in those days meant the US.
There's a long passage in the book I'm reading, but it basically boils down to, "hell is an airport terminal." I can understand why some people feel that way, particularly the author of this book, who as a Palestinian refugee doesn't technically have a passport (?). Reading this passage in an airport made me realize two things: 1) I enjoy the airport mainly because I take for granted the fact that I can easily pass through it to wherever I want to go next and 2) all of us in the airport, no matter how multicultural, belong to an extremely privileged class of person: people who fly internationally.
Point 2 actually made me feel vaguely guilty about how much I enjoy airports.
Recently, one of my colleagues told me that T3 (Delhi's new international airport) is one of the most successful retail spaces to open in India in the past several years. A quick glance around the Internet turns up the emerging concept of the "aerotropolis" (try saying it ten times fast), which are entire cities constructed around airports. In transit literature, administrators trade tips on the best ways to boost "non-aeronautical revenue," which in many cities now accounts for as much as half of an airport's annual revenue.
The modern international airport, in most developed and many developing countries, is a little like McDonalds, and offers the same reflexive and immediate comforts. The currency and language are recognizable. The stores are the same.
In other words: maybe the reason I like Schiphol is because it's exactly like every other international airport I've ever been to.
On my recent trip to the US, I flew through Amsterdam, which took me through Schiphol, the main airport in the Netherlands. When I first arrived, at 7 am, Schiphol was all but deserted, although anything would appear deserted after the streets of Delhi.
A quick tour through the main concourse convinced me that the denizens of the Netherlands all lived in blue and white porcelain houses, eating nothing but cheese and occasionally salami, surrounded by tulips.
I ate a panini that contained nothing but Gouda cheese and mayonnaise, a combination about as unappealing as it sounds, and rejected a bottle of "fresh fruit frappe" because it reminded me, in its color and texture, of the fake blood that vampires drink on that HBO show that I once used to watch mainly because it featured Alexander Skaarsgaard. I did get a "cafe au lait," which arrived in a sadly tiny paper cup. Apparently "cafe au lait" means different things in Amsterdam and America. The sugar, meanwhile, came in tiny white tablets that looked either like a diet supplement or an exotic club drug. Counting on the latter, I stirred a couple of these tablets into my little cafe au lait.
Just kidding. I did not get high in the Amsterdam International Airport. But I did ask myself: what the hell does the word 'panini' even mean? Does anyone know? Is it just a New Age way of saying 'sandwich'?
I did notice that there were some strange-looking feather masks in a shop labeled only "Accessorize!" and that the tulip store sold knick knacks sorted under the helpful headings "Women," "Child," and "Adult." A Rijks Museum booth stood behind a piece of modern art that resembled nothing so much as the scale models of diseased bronchioles that one of my former doctors used to keep in his office.
I also had a lot of time to ask myself questions, like 'Why am I so obsessed with airports?'
This all began about three years ago when I first moved to India. I would often arrive at the airport early. Unlike pretty much everywhere else I go in India, airports remain relatively uncrowded. In most major cities, the airports are new, and still kinda look that way. In other words, airports reminded me of home, which in those days meant the US.
There's a long passage in the book I'm reading, but it basically boils down to, "hell is an airport terminal." I can understand why some people feel that way, particularly the author of this book, who as a Palestinian refugee doesn't technically have a passport (?). Reading this passage in an airport made me realize two things: 1) I enjoy the airport mainly because I take for granted the fact that I can easily pass through it to wherever I want to go next and 2) all of us in the airport, no matter how multicultural, belong to an extremely privileged class of person: people who fly internationally.
Point 2 actually made me feel vaguely guilty about how much I enjoy airports.
Recently, one of my colleagues told me that T3 (Delhi's new international airport) is one of the most successful retail spaces to open in India in the past several years. A quick glance around the Internet turns up the emerging concept of the "aerotropolis" (try saying it ten times fast), which are entire cities constructed around airports. In transit literature, administrators trade tips on the best ways to boost "non-aeronautical revenue," which in many cities now accounts for as much as half of an airport's annual revenue.
The modern international airport, in most developed and many developing countries, is a little like McDonalds, and offers the same reflexive and immediate comforts. The currency and language are recognizable. The stores are the same.
In other words: maybe the reason I like Schiphol is because it's exactly like every other international airport I've ever been to.
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