Waiting To Arrive

A photo I took as I was waiting for the sun to rise in Dublin Airport

There isn’t much that makes me nervous about flying, despite living in a “post-9/11 world”. It is more the feeling of boredom that overtakes my emotions during a flight; I find myself fidgeting and counting the number of seats as I await the initially unsteady landing of a giant aircraft. I stopped in Dublin for a layover between Boston and Prague. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep on the first leg of my flight, and was ready to stretch my legs and eat non-airplane food.
Unfortunately, airport food isn’t much better than air*plane* food, and I arrived an hour before the currency exchange booth opened. I had no euros and an empty stomach, and didn’t get to eat for at least two hours after I arrived. I was bright-eyed as I wandered in circles through the cold halls, staring at signs for shops that wouldn’t open for at least an hour. There was no heat in the Dublin airport, and I kept my winter coat on as I searched for somewhere comfortable to relax until I would be able to exchange money and eat.
Sleeplessness overtook my mind, but not to the point of actually being able to sleep. Minutes went by and I merely stared out the windows, waiting for the sun to rise. I watched other travelers uncomfortably slump into the hard metal chairs, moving their limbs only occasionally to better rest their chins.
I looked at the clock about every fifteen minutes. My flight was scheduled to leave at 11am, and it was barely 5:30. I was too tired to make any progression in thought.
I eventually drifted into a half-sleep, but was constantly awakened by the sound of footsteps or voices speaking loudly to announce the departure of a flight. My back hurt, though, and when I finally was able to buy some food I decided to stay awake until my flight would begin boarding.
I decided to read, but the only book I had brought with me in my carry-on bag was a tiny gold-rimmed copy of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass,” two stories that I’m sure made me feel even more disoriented than I already did. I had finished the first story while on the plane, and flipped through the original drawings that were included in the text. I tried to copy some of the thin-line drawings in my brand new sketchbook, but soon ceased the attempt. Whenever I have a new sketchbook I find it extremely difficult to allow myself to make mistakes; I want to have a display of interesting words and pictures at the beginning, not mess-ups and blank pages. My lack of foresight had already made a mess in the first page of the journal: forgetting the difference in pressure and distance between my normal place when using my favorite pens, I tried to draw on the plane and instantly remembered that ballpoint pens tend to “explode” in an aircraft cabin. My hands were covered with blank ink and so was the first page of my sketchbook. I tried to make the blobs into thin lines that stretched around a plane cutout I had glued to the first page, but it still looks quite messy.
The six hours that I spent in the Dublin airport should be forgettable, as I achieved essentially nothing during my time there. But I can’t get that moment in transit out of my head, as I truly realized what an adventure I had embarked on. My next stop would be Prague, the city where I would live for four months. When they finally announced the boarding of my late-morning flight, I was no longer bored. I couldn’t stop imagining what it would look and feel like when I was finally able to leave an airport and set foot in a new land.