Well, then.
It's now... oh... about 3:47am, Pacific Standard Time. I'm sitting here in the San Francisco airport, outside the security gate, as I have been for the last three hours or so. Note to my fellow travelers: apparently, no matter what, you cannot enter the terminal until the day you’re supposed to leave, and at SFO, the earliest possible time to enter is 04:30.
And why, you may ask, am I sitting in SFO at 3:47 (now 3:52) in the morning? Well, dear friends, here is a lesson to the wise: don't ever decide it's a good idea to take a flight that leaves at 6am. It is worth the extra $100 to leave at 10am, believe you me. But unfortunately, the NSF was only so generous with their $$, and since my travel budget for the year was shot in about February, here we are at SFO at (now 3:57)am. And of course, I wasn't thinking about how much of a burden I would be putting on the poor soul who would be dragged into driving me to the airport. SO. It turned out Megan was going to SFO to pick up some friends at midnight anyway, so I thought I'd save Margaret the trouble of driving me there at... well, exactly this time, to tell the truth.
I have to say, we are a sad bunch, those fifty or so of us huddled outside the Delta security gate, waiting, trying to sleep curled up on the floor or across a row of four seats with dividers in-between. The metal between the seats is cold because they’ve kept the A/C on, and cars keep driving by the glass windows, their lights flashing in the faces of the travel-weary.
It’s like a living graveyard of waiting; semi-comatose walking dead keep passing by, wondering what’s next and when they’ll be released from this pseudo-prison. There is a curious ad hoc culture here; beware of getting up to go to the bathroom, as your seat will be taken from you by a group currently huddled on the floor. Do not speak loudly, do not laugh, do not open bags within a 20ft radius of a curled up body. It is more a culture of trust than I have seen in recent times, at least in American airports; people sleep on the floor next to their bags, which could be stolen out from under their noses in an instant.
On one of my walks along Terminal 3, I twice passed another rambler, carrying a poster tube much like my own. I felt I had to ask where he was headed- possibly to another conference? Our exchange was surprisingly terse, given the fact that neither of us had anywhere to be for an hour or two. But no, he was just headed home to the other coast.
The intimacy that develops in such short periods of time always surprises me. In most situations, I would not think to stop a guy in an airport and engage him in conversation about a topic that only by the slightest chance could actually reveal a connection between us. And yet I was compelled to, by his mere proximity and the recognition that in a way, we were in exactly the same situation. I’ve also noticed this intimacy, the feeling that you begin to know and feel for everyone surrounding you, on long-haul flights. Even though that guy’s baby was crying half the night and the woman in front of you was making disgusting smells all twelve hours, by the time you leave you’re all joking together, and when you see them at the baggage claim you sincerely hope that they find their luggage quickly and get home safe; on most flights you wouldn’t even notice the people around you.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Looking forward to a good 18hrs more of travel, woohoo!
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