I have come to the conclusion that airports are alien worlds. Things do not work here like they do elsewhere. Everything is linear, and the stores and furniture and signs repeat themselves, like a broken record. People interact differently here, they are hurried, concerned, taxed, all of them little fortresses too occupied with being bombarded to worry about much else.

Washington-Dulles is not a very attractive airport, it is rather cramped, and its age is beginning to show. Even so, it is still an airport, and so it is a monument to the art of moving people. People make such big things devoted to relatively simply tasks, like moving people, or making electricity, or paper, I am in awe of them. They are things not defined by aesthetics or comfort or spirituality, but more modern ideas, like efficiency. Still, this produces an aesthetic all its own, and a very interesting one that challenges us as humans.

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I keep alternating between waves of fear and excitement: fear, that I am going to another country, where not only do I know no one, but I also no nothing of the culture or language, so I have to learn what is right and wrong and acceptable all over again; excitement, that I will be seeing a place unlike any I have ever seen before, with people who see the world in a different way from me. It will be challenging and uncomfortable, and it is my biggest fear that I will find I prefer the comfort of home. But I do not think this will happen. Challenges are always rewarded, even if its rewards are intangible or even indescribable.

In three hours, I will board my plane, and be on my way to the other half of the world. I won't just see a different culture, and a different language, but a different sky! New stars in the night-time, constellations I have never learned in school, Polaris will be out of sight! New plants and animals, new geographies! I can't wait.

(Written July 9, 2007, 11:50 AM)

I am sitting in the T Concourse of the Atlanta airport. I made it through check-in and security without incident; I am now 'in the system,' and will be for the next seventeen hours. Twelve hours in the air, ten on the ground.

Of course, the hard thing about being in any closed system is that, after you have signed the papers and given them your money, you are at their mercy, and will have to pay whatever extortionary price for whatever service they see fit. Ten dollars for a sandwich and a coke, eight for wireless access. That is why this will not be posted until later.

Airports are a lot like theme parks: expensive food, and fun rides. Except these rides last for hours and are a lot more fun, I think. How often are you five miles in the air, and how often do you get that sort of view? I love it. I love the lands and the seas and the skies, and I love being able to see their big picture. The Moon Shot is comparable, though I don't know of one near the coast. Probably Atlantic City.

The moment my feet touch Argentine soil is getting closer every minute now, where before it only came closer in days. Still, it seems impossible. I doubt I will be aware of the possibility before it is actually realized.

I am sitting on a bench with an Asian man, and he will not stop pounding on it. Please stop pounding on this bench, Asian man. I love percussion, but not necessarily percussions.

Speaking of music, did you know that the airport in Brussels plays Brian Eno's "Music For Airports" 24/7? Already I love airports, but that is one I must visit.

Enough ruminations, soon I will board my first flight, and be on my way to strange lands.