Adventures at the Airport

Let me preface this post by saying it may be rather long. I’ve decided to bunk off work for a while to blog because [as you will soon learn] I have technically been “working” since 6:30 this morning. Plus, I just don’t feel like doing "real" work, nor do I have anything incredibly pressing at the moment because all the students are away visiting Jutland, and other "exciting" places.

The beginnings of this blog ramble all started yesterday afternoon… One of my colleagues asked me if I would be willing to pick up a parent of one of our students at the airport this morning. Airports, along with grocery stores and drug/convenience stores (like CVS or Walgreens), are actually one of my favorite places to kill time. The people watching opportunities at airports are unbeatable. So, I agreed to go greet the mom, take her to her hotel, etc. I was all set logistically to arrive to meet the mother’s 7:10am flight. I’d leave my apartment around 6:45, arrive at the airport around 7:00, hit up Starbucks, and be ready and waiting with my sign by the arrivals gate by the time she deplaned and collected her luggage.

The "trouble" started when I received a courtesy text last night from the airline, informing me that the woman’s flight would actually be arriving twenty minutes before schedule. This was an incredibly surprising alert, considering the bad weather both out of Denver (her starting point) and in Newark, where she was supposed to catch her non-stop connecting flight to Copenhagen. The other bad thing was that I received this text while I was in the middle of my fifth drink at Salon 39 with some friends. Shit, I’d have to wake up earlier than expected and I drank more than I intended. Shit.

5:30am came [expectedly] fast. I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower, desperately craving a cinnamon brown sugar pop tart from my overpriced American Store stash. Though I was hung over and feeling ‘blah’, I forced myself to skip the pop tart and wait with the promise that I would get a skinny raspberry peach muffin from Starbucks as soon as I arrived at the airport. By 6:30am I was slumped in the passenger seat of a swanky Mercedes cab, being whisked through the darkness to the airport.

Once at the airport (6:45am), I went immediately to the ONLY STARBUCKS IN DENMARK. “Venti-soy-extra-hot-caramel-macchiato and a skinny-raspberry-peach-muffin, please.” Charge the 75 kroners (yes, that’s $15 USD for a coffee and a muffin(!)) to my corporate credit card. Swish, swipe. Thought process during this entire Starbucks exchange: Fuck, it’s early. Hmmm… interesting… They sell a Starbucks City Mug for Copenhagen now. That’s really strange, considering there is ONE STARBUCKS IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY. What a waste of production equipment to produce mugs for just one store. Maybe I’ll get one.

6:55. I’m sitting in Starbucks eating my muffin and someone at the table next to me accidentally spills their tea all over the place. A little girl at the table, probably around seven years old, immediately bursts into tears. Thinking about it, I conclude that it is really strange that young children cry over spilled drinks (As the saying goes - There’s no use crying over spilled milk!...and I presume it would follow, tea, or any other beverage substitution for milk). It wasn’t even her tea and no one else at the table was making a big deal over it at all. Very strange. I wonder if there have been studies done on this particular subject/phenomenon. Do young children have an enhanced sense of loss (compared to adults) when it comes to spilled beverages? If so, I wonder if this is culturally or socio-economically related… Interesting. Maybe I’ll look into this later, out of curiosity. Geez, I sooo have a degree in psychology.

7:04am. Okay, according to the arrivals screen, the mom's plane from Newark has landed.

7:20am. Okay, baggage is apparently coming in 12 minutes. Maybe I should finish my coffee and go stand by the arrivals gate with my sign.

7:45am. According to the arrivals scree, all baggage has been delivered. Where on earth is this mom? Oooh, here comes a Thai Air flight from Bangkok. Wow, glammy! All the Thai Air flight attendants wear flashy bright purple uniforms! Whoa, these people coming back from Thailand are sooo tan, and wearing flip flops!!! Thai Air also gives everyone a beautiful purple orchid to pin to their clothes as they disembark. Pretty! Text Rachel: ‘Watching a Thai flight come out of airport. Everyone so, so tan. We should go.’ Response from Rachel: ‘Done. Book it.’

7:55am. Still watching the Thai Air passengers come through the arrivals gate. Eeew, too many people are wearing Crocs. Blegh. And seriously, I know they are coming from Thailand, but why are they all wearing shorts and sandals? They knew they were flying to Copenhagen. It’s too cold for flip flops here right now… and no weather temperature or conditions ever warrant wearing Crocs. Gross.

8:00am. HOTTIE SPOTTING. Great broken in jeans, long sleeved grey shirt. Wow. Hmmm, appears to be meeting a friend. A guy, not a girl, but the exchange doesn’t appear to be of the homosexual variety. Hmm…

8:20am. I spot someone with skis wrapped up in grocery bags and duct tape. Weird. You’d think if they were a nice set of skis they’d buy a ski bag. If they weren’t nice enough to warrant buying a ski bag, they would probably be better off not bringing them at all and just renting skis at their destination. Weird. GhettoNetto yellow ski bag. Hahaha.

8.25am. So. Much. Burberry. Text Libby: ‘High scoring morning’, referring, of course, to the Burberry Points Game. Extra points for the novacheck skirt, naturally.

8:30am. Where the fuck is this mom?! I walk over to the information desk to inquire.

“Sorry, we can’t release information about our passengers.”

Damn. “She may be slightly mentally disabled, her daughter is in the hospital. It’s a traumatic time, naturally.”

“Ooooh, well! Let me see what I can find out for you.”

Bingo. I get the 'illegally relased' information from the guy at the information desk. Apparently the weather in Denver made her miss her connector in Newark. I’d been hanging out at the airport for two hours for nothing. She'd be coming later. Meh. I went over and bought the Starbucks City Mug. Not totally a worthless trip, I guess.