The Joys of Flying

Hello everyone, 

Christian here. A very groggy Christian, I might add. I am typing this post from 37,000 feet in the sky with some crappy Emirates wifi, and I just woke up from a night of fitfully tossing and turning in my little slice of heaven called an aisle seat. If I sound incoherent, you can blame Emirates.

EDIT: It's 2 AM, and I'm here in Dubai airport safe and sound. It is a zoo. But again, this just reinforces why I love flying. Read on, my friends. 

Anyways, since today is a travel day (literally, I'm flying for 16 hours of the day, with an 8 hour layover after), I thought I'd write today's post on why I love flying. 

Flying's a funny thing, it is. It's almost universally hated and complained about, yet we live in an age where more amenities, goodies, flight routes, and comfort levels than ever are being rolled out by airlines of all shapes and sizes in attempt to please the average Joe. 

It's a bit of a paradox. 

Personally, I love the idea and act of flying and transit, and I am willing to swallow a little discomfort on planes (read, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES) to travel across the country or across the world and immerse myself in a totally new culture and a brand-new location.

But thats not exactly getting to the root of this story, is it? What about flying makes me actually LOVE flying?

There are many reasons.

I love the traffic-choked drive from my home in Monrovia to get to LAX. 

I love sitting and daydreaming in traffic about where all these people could possibly be going on that given day. It saves me the anxiety and anger that comes with constantly craning your neck to see if there is a break in the traffic or wondering what could possibly cause all this traffic. From my vantage point in the backseat, I peer through grimy car windows at people with blank stares, like robots with flesh, wondering where they're from and if they have a family and kids and if they're happy in the job they're working and what languages they speak and so on. 

I love driving onto the final stretch of the 105 freeway, running parallel to LAX, watching all the planes landing and taking off. I've always been a simple kid to please. Just show me some planes at an airport, and I'm in awe. Enthralled. In seventh heaven. That magic was never lost on me.

And the crowds. Oh how I love the crowds. I know, at this point, you're thinking I'm crazy. My parents certainly do. How could one enjoy crowds?? And in a high-stress situation like an airport?!

That's right. If you couldn't tell, I'm a people person. I LOVE people-watching, so really, the airport is like hitting the people-watching jackpot. People of all sizes, shapes, colors, and tempermants mill about aimlessly waiting for their flights to take off. You see the expressions of people in a rush to either catch their flight or running the other direction to baggage claim. So many different stories to tell, so many different destinations. It fascinates me. 

I love the international terminals. It's like all of my above points multiplied by 1,000. Now you add in people from all over the WORLD flying for work, for pleasure, to visit family, whatever. Just talk a walk from one gate to the next, and you'll see what I mean. So many beautiful foreign languages mingling together in harmony, so many people all with the same goal: reaching their final destination. 

You make some unlikely friends flying internationally. As we speak, I've already befriended and shared jokes with a Bangladeshi, an Indian, and an Arab just lounging in my seat. The international terminals are cosmopolitan and exotic, just the way I like it. 

I love the departures boards. It just blows my mind. Call me simple-minded or stupid, but there is something about staring at the departures that generates so much wanderlust and nostalgia within me. The fact that within the very same complex you are standing in, flights are taking off that could directly or indirectly land you in aany of the seven continents on our planet. The scope and size is what gets me.

London. Manila. Bangkok. Paris. Dubai. Tahiti. Beijing. Shanghai. Guangzhou. Tokyo. Sao Paolo. Dublin. Addis Ababa. Johannesburg. Zurich. Athens. Istanbul. Stockholm. Moscow. Doha. Abu Dhabi. Riyadh. 

To me, those names signal adventure. They are far-flung lands, each with it's own identity and culture. It symbolizes freedom.

Flying, to me, symbolizes freedom. Never have we had such access to the world before. It's time to take advantage.