Long Descent Be Damned: Airports Still Romantic

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  09.15.08 | 11:45 AM ET

imageWhen it comes to killing time in airworld, writer Ethan Gilsdorf sees a glass half-full. “It’s the perpetual option of suddenly being somewhere distant and different from my home that makes airports seductive,” he writes in an essay for the New York Times. “I could rush up to any ticket counter and buy a last-minute fare to Oslo or Detroit. I could be like the hero of a movie, following my whim to be with the woman my destiny has foretold.”

You’ve got to give it to Gilsdorf: Conjuring up blissed-out reunion fantasies amid overzealous TSA officers, fast-food courts and intermittent bursts of air rage ain’t easy. 

But if you’re a keen observer, he reminds us, you’ll find plenty of human stories unfolding over a five-hour layover at O’Hare.

Photo of Dulles International Airport by D.F. Shapinsky via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Tags: Air Travel, Airworld, News and Briefs

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


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