When does a long planned vacation feel real? To me, it is when we pass through large art installations at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
See, planning, learning, preparing, booking are all very much real events. Even immersing yourself in foreign language tutorial apps and YouTube videos is not enough to feel imminent. Why?
Because that all happens in one’s routine surroundings.
However, it is not everyday a person passes under a 30 ft bronze wishbone on the way to TSA security lines.
Doesn’t everyone start imagining how big the fowl that would belong to? (I wish my nieces were still little. I’d be the uncle who tells them, “…before airplanes, people would ride giant birds.”)
Then, once shoes are back on and belongings reassembled on the other side of the security, it is on to the gates. Suddenly, past the airport-as-shopping-mall establishments, this appears:
Well, Theodor Geisel wasn’t Italian, but that doesn’t make Italy any less remarkable.
For example, why don’t we do this in our restrooms?
Everything is there without taking a step.
Sometimes, the actual travel part of “travel” is to be endured. Ten hours spent seated with only rumors of legroom, obnoxious co-passengers, and horrific airplane bathroom experiences*, are a test. A challenge. A barrier…to separate those who must discover the land where Vespas outnumber SUVs and…
whisk down boulevards like this:
*You’ll have to ask Andrea yourself; a gentleman never smells and tells.
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