Friday, February 9, 2007

Meditation on Waiting

Travel is all about adventures - my kids know about mom and her adventures! Yesterday was the WAITING adventure. We got up and 6:30 and left our big bags in the hotel lockers. About 9AM headed to the airport. Traffic was not bad and zipped along and a good pace and arrived 45 min later. Check was not terribly taxing and going through security is a piece of cake compared to the airports in USA and ENG.



We managed to find our way to the gate E1a. Now E 1a is really and airport version of a bus stop. You would think that as big this airport is we would have gate service. Nope! So we settled into our hard plastic seats, in an acoustically challenged space that I found much too air conditioned. Not bad if the place departed on schedule at 11:30. The time approached and an apologetic counter clerk annouced a one hour delay. OK, time for some coffee. An hour later she announced another delay of one hour. When that time was up another delay of one hour was announced but this time it came with a food voucher for the food court.



The food court had fast food eateries featuring every food in the world. So what did we get a voucher for? Burger King and Dairy Queen! BLING. We got back to our gate and waited another hour before our counter clerk said that the plane was cleared for flight.



The only thing saving of my sanity at this point is the knitting project that I designed for this trip. I am working on a sleeve right now. The sides, and back done. I have called this sweater the Yuki sweater in honor of the elephant that trained me as a mahout. Ihave been asked if elephants smell? Well, yes they do. About as much as a horse does. It is an earthy pleasant smell. Unlike horses, elephants don't sweat so you are not soaked with elephant sweat after a trek in the jungle. However, they do have elephant lick, similiar to dog lick. The elephants put thier snouts in their mouths and they become wet. Then if they like you they put thier snout on your arms and neck, hence wet elephant lick. Elephants do like you to sing to them. Now most of you know that the best time for me to sing is when I am alone in a sound proof room. Well, the elephants like my singing. They even started to dance to my singing. Very nice.



I am including a photo of the plane we waited for.

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