En Route to Buenos Aires: Talking to Strangers

This blog is approaching its seventh year in existence and so far its entries have tended to focus on outings and activities. Although they include pictures, video and descriptions, in my opinion they generally fail to capture the essence of the place. This phenomenon provided a constant point of discussion during my Cultural Translation studies. How exactly does one accurately translate the intangible qualities of a place? Still, I try. As you will see with this series, I practiced much more mindfulness during my trip to Argentina, partly because I didn't have a buddy to keep me company and distract me from my inner thoughts about my surroundings. I had also been warned early on about how commonplace it was for thieves to run by and snatch your camera out of your hands as you attempted to take a photo. Heeding the warning, I found myself more inclined to closely observe and write about my surroundings than to photograph them.

Like many travelers, I would have preferred to get to Argentina as fast as possible (teleportation à la Star Trek would be my choice of transportation). But like everyone else, I had to go through a series of invasive, uncomfortable procedures and spend a long time in small, cramped spaces with strangers in the same predicament. Despite the fatigue and frustration that such situations generally produce, I chose to spend my time watching, thinking and experiencing the world and it's variety of people rather than loathing my current position therein. As such, it makes sense to start the story of this journey from its seemingly mundane beginnings.

Seattle

Airports nowadays tend to make us feel more like cattle heading to slaughter than human beings headed to exotic destinations. They have the ability to augment that sense of needing a vacation from your vacation. This trip was no exception. In an attempt to save money, I made the insane choice of having two layovers instead of one so I had a long day ahead of me.

As has been protocol for the last ten years, we passengers were treated like animals. The check-in and security processes were stressful and dehumanizing for all. Some people handle it well, being aware of the fact that they must endure these trials along with many other people. They are the ones ready with shoes removed, plastic baggies full of liquids out and laptops in a separate bin before they even approach the scanner. Then there are those multiple centers of the universe who nonchalantly attempt to go through security fully donned with jewelry and prohibited items, only to be sent back through repeatedly, removing one contraband item at a time and slowing the process for the rest of us. While in line at Seatac, I witnessed a very old woman in a wheelchair being lifted out of it by two people and then being made to shuffle, unsteadily and unassisted, through a scanner before the authorities would give her back her cane so that she could shuffle back into her chair. It was the epitome of disgrace.

I was already trying to think in Spanish to prepare myself for Argentina, which would prove a challenge both because I was a bit out of practice and because it was a new accent with its own regional vocabulary. The first Spanish I heard was that of a father whose little boy was holding up the security line. "Quit screwing around! What are you looking at?" the father asked. "The lady; the lady from India!" I smiled, realizing that he had been staring at the older woman in the brilliant yellow and red sari whose clothing I had admired a few minutes before.

Having successfully passed through the security checkpoint without being physically violated (I didn't have to do the full body scanner OR the pat-down!), I was on my way to my gate. As I ascended an escalator in a crowd of people, I noticed that the oncoming downward-moving escalator was occupied by only a father and a sweet-faced boy of about four. As each clump of people on my escalator approached the oncoming party, the boy smiled and waved. Everyone smiled and waved back. For a moment we all forgot where we were and what we were going through.

Before even leaving Seattle I encountered my first language difficulty. I went to one of the few open places that was serving breakfast and ordered a breakfast sandwich. The woman behind the counter asked me, "Carasan or biscuvit?" I raised my eyebrows and leaned toward her so I could hear better, "Hmm?" I queried. "Carasan or biscuvit?" I looked at the menu and saw that the sandwiches in question were available on croissants or biscuits. "Biscuit," I said. I collected my food and, as I began to walk away, heard the exact same confusing exchange take place with the woman who had been standing in line behind me. Later I looked at my receipt and saw that the woman who had served me had a slavic name.

I must have fallen asleep on the plane or have still been, despite my intentions toward mindfulness, blinded by my usual anti-social, self-isolating behavior because I have no idea who I sat next to on the plane, if anyone.

Salt Lake

When we disembarked in Salt Lake, the first thing I noticed was all of the "Elders" waiting around the boarding area, who also happened to be the least elderly people in sight. I had expected to see them there, and they kindly provided evidence for my assumption that Salt Lake was filled with nothing but Mormons. What I didn't expect was their sense of humor about it. As I moseyed around to kill time, I saw one kiosk hawking t-shirts that declared emphatically "I tried polygamy!" Several of my fellow travelers in the area set off my gaydar and I wondered whether it would be substantially more challenging to be gay in a city like Salt Lake compared with anywhere else... except maybe San Francisco. At one point I walked by a mother playing airplane with her one-year-old baby boy, whose babyish wisps of hair were dyed green and cut and styled into a mohawk. I emitted judgmental dick rays in the mother's direction.

From Salt Lake to Atlanta, the second leg my trip, I shared my chair-in-the-sky space with a woman about my age. At some point during the flight I got hungry and pulled a pear from my backpack. I had a few and didn't think I'd eat them all before I got to Argentina. I wasn't sure I could take them through customs so I offered one to her my seat mate. This small gesture took incredible bravery on my part. I was afraid she would think I was a weirdo. But she just thanked me, looking pleasantly surprised, and we began chatting. I learned that she was from Provo, met her husband at BYU, had four children and was a military wife. (Again, my internal Mormon alarm went off. Not sure why I even have one of those.) Her husband's job as a navy engineer had recently taken the family to North Carolina. This situation was great for her because she loved to travel and had already done a lot of it thanks to her father's job with an international hotel chain.

The plane landed, we said goodbye, and that was that.

Atlanta

In Atlanta, as with many airports, you have to take a train from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. I got on the train with dozens of people but, once the domestic terminal stops had come and gone, found myself in a car with only two others. One of them was a man about my dad's age who turned to me and asked, "Where are you going?" I told him where and why and he said he was jealous. I asked where he was going and he said "Dubai, except not for fun; for work."

When I arrived at the international terminal, I had quite a bit of time to kill before my flight so I decided to wander around a bit and then have dinner. I ordered some food and then sat at a vacant table in the food court. A moment later, the man I had briefly interacted with on the train came and asked me if I'd like to join him at his table. I said yes and moved my food and belongings there. We introduced ourselves and sat there for a good hour or so chatting about this and that while we dined. He was an civilian engineer from Oregon who was only really going to Dubai for about 24 hours. His actual destination was an airbase in Afghanistan where he would be working on a project for the next three or four months. He would not be allowed to leave the airbase, for obvious reasons. He seemed like a nice man and, once I knew a little more about him, I began to feel sorry for him because he seemed lonely. His mother had recently died, he was no longer married, his children were grown and I'm pretty sure he was an alcoholic. During the course of our conversation, I lost track of time and only realized it was time for me to go when he asked what time I needed to board. We said a quick goodbye and told each other to be safe as I dashed away. He kept popping into my head after that (and still does sometimes) and I sincerely hoped he would be okay.

When I approached my gate, an attendant announced that the plane we were supposed to take had changed. As a result, everyone's seat assignments had changed and we all had to line up again to get new boarding passes. As one might expect, a few centers of the universe managed to remain clueless about this turn of events and boarded the plane with their original boarding passes, causing confusion and delays. When I first got on, I sat next to an Argentine man who I had noticed earlier in the airport because he had the word "ne'er-do-well" written all over his face. There was nothing in particular about his appearance that betrayed him as anything less than wholesome, but I just had a feeling about him. He was middle-aged, dressed like a teenager and smelled like he had smoked a hundred cigarettes before getting on the plane. I honestly wondered what I would do about my valuables when I inevitably had to get up to pee. Since it was taking some time for everyone to figure out the new seating arrangement, I took the opportunity to call Charlie. After we hung up, another man approached my row indicating that his seat was currently occupied by Mr. Ne'er-Do-Well. It turned out that the latter had failed to get a new boarding pass (surprise, surprise). He suggested that perhaps I was the one in the wrong seat so the newcomer summoned a flight attendant to get to the bottom of things. While we waited for our seating to be sorted it out, I jokingly offered to fight Mr. Ne'er-Do-Well for the seat. He laughed and declined, raising his hands defensively, saying he knew better than to fight with women. He was eventually re-seated and I found myself next to another Argentine man who was taking his American-born daughter and her partner to Argentina for the first time. We spoke in Spanish and he gave me some pointers about getting around, staying safe and what interesting things to see.

It was late when the flight took off, so it wasn't long before my seat mate had dozed off for the night. I slept on and off, and mostly off once I saw an insane lightning show going on outside the plane window. I wondered if I would make it to Argentina at all.