6:31 am. Observation from DTW: those U-shaped neck pillows are one of the most helpful traveling tools, however painfully geeky they seem. I bought one on my forever-long journey to Michigan on Christmas Eve, and it has been revolutionary in my plane- and bus-sleeping habits. A. thought it was funny, in Honduras, until she tried it on the bus, and then she, too, was a convert. They are brilliant.
That being said, it is not acceptable to walk through the Detroit Airport with the neck pillow around your neck. Not ever.
I am sitting in Detroit next to the fountain. Detroit’s airport, as I am sure I have complained before, is a long tube. Gate A1 is at one end, and Gate A80 is about a mile away down an incredibly long hallway. If you have a short connection and you come in at Gate A3 and are supposed to fly out from Gate A78, well, good luck with that. Do not allow yourself to be fooled into thinking, “But they are in the same terminal!” They might as well be on different planets. See you at the rebooking desk.
(This is not even getting into the horrors of Terminals B and C. If you have to go to Terminal B or Terminal C from the main terminal, you will pass through a long underground tunnel filled with creepy moving lights and eerie music. It’s like you are trapped under the sea, drowning. I am sitting here working up the courage to go through it right now.)
There are three redeeming qualities: first, it is bright and airy. Second, birds get caught in the rafters and you can hear them cheeping of a morning, as if you were pleasantly outside (which, um, might not be good for the birds; if so, I take this one back). Third, there is this fountain.
The fountain is a huge black marble disc, about twenty feet across and maybe two feet tall (I am terrible at estimation). There are a whole bunch of jets in the smooth surface of the disc, and they all, at various times, shoot streams of water toward the middle. My favorites are the short little streams, because they seem to be leaping like fish out of their jets and diving into the middle, unattached to water before or behind. All the water runs off the side of the disc like a constant, barely discernable waterfall. You can reach out and touch it. Nothing separates you from the marble – not a pool, not a wall.
Kids are mesmerized by it. I am mesmerized by it. I have sat in this very place, staring at it, for more hours than I could count, caught somewhere between my hometown and Liberia, Rwanda, New York, and Gone West.
6:50 am. I flew the red-eye to get here, but somehow in the brilliance of having flown to Southeast Asia last year, I managed to be a Medallion member of SkyMiles, and so they upgraded me to First Class. Not only did I actually get some sleep, sprawled out in seat 1A, but in the last half hour, after they announced that service was finished, when the flight attendant noticed that I was awake, he came over and asked if I wanted juice, water, coffee? And so I sat there, legs comfortably crossed, holding a little cup of warm coffee and watching the red morning sky over Michigan.
If flying were always so comfortable, I would do it for fun. It’s so nice not to feel like the flight attendant hates you (see: coach class, all the time).
Random funny moment: I reached down under my seat to see if there was a footrest, halfway through the flight, for some reason, and accidentally grabbed the toes of the guy behind me. Oops.
That being said, it is not acceptable to walk through the Detroit Airport with the neck pillow around your neck. Not ever.
I am sitting in Detroit next to the fountain. Detroit’s airport, as I am sure I have complained before, is a long tube. Gate A1 is at one end, and Gate A80 is about a mile away down an incredibly long hallway. If you have a short connection and you come in at Gate A3 and are supposed to fly out from Gate A78, well, good luck with that. Do not allow yourself to be fooled into thinking, “But they are in the same terminal!” They might as well be on different planets. See you at the rebooking desk.
(This is not even getting into the horrors of Terminals B and C. If you have to go to Terminal B or Terminal C from the main terminal, you will pass through a long underground tunnel filled with creepy moving lights and eerie music. It’s like you are trapped under the sea, drowning. I am sitting here working up the courage to go through it right now.)
There are three redeeming qualities: first, it is bright and airy. Second, birds get caught in the rafters and you can hear them cheeping of a morning, as if you were pleasantly outside (which, um, might not be good for the birds; if so, I take this one back). Third, there is this fountain.
The fountain is a huge black marble disc, about twenty feet across and maybe two feet tall (I am terrible at estimation). There are a whole bunch of jets in the smooth surface of the disc, and they all, at various times, shoot streams of water toward the middle. My favorites are the short little streams, because they seem to be leaping like fish out of their jets and diving into the middle, unattached to water before or behind. All the water runs off the side of the disc like a constant, barely discernable waterfall. You can reach out and touch it. Nothing separates you from the marble – not a pool, not a wall.
Kids are mesmerized by it. I am mesmerized by it. I have sat in this very place, staring at it, for more hours than I could count, caught somewhere between my hometown and Liberia, Rwanda, New York, and Gone West.
6:50 am. I flew the red-eye to get here, but somehow in the brilliance of having flown to Southeast Asia last year, I managed to be a Medallion member of SkyMiles, and so they upgraded me to First Class. Not only did I actually get some sleep, sprawled out in seat 1A, but in the last half hour, after they announced that service was finished, when the flight attendant noticed that I was awake, he came over and asked if I wanted juice, water, coffee? And so I sat there, legs comfortably crossed, holding a little cup of warm coffee and watching the red morning sky over Michigan.
If flying were always so comfortable, I would do it for fun. It’s so nice not to feel like the flight attendant hates you (see: coach class, all the time).
Random funny moment: I reached down under my seat to see if there was a footrest, halfway through the flight, for some reason, and accidentally grabbed the toes of the guy behind me. Oops.
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