Episodes in which I comment on the routine nature of air travel are themselves becoming routine, and now I am looking out on a sunny afternoon in Amsterdam, with aircraft puttering around out on the tarmac. From here the taxiing airplanes seem oddly purposeless, like sheep drifting around in a pasture.
I’m traveling heavy this time, laden with electronics of various descriptions. My carryon includes two laptops, a very large camera, a wide-angle lens, and an external hard drive (complete with pirates). In my checked bag is another hard drive, various electronic gizmos used in the movie industry, cables and AC adapters. The brand-new MacBook Pro (never even started up) is pretty obviously a tax dodge, but luckily Czech customs cares not at all about things like that. (Watch this be the one time they do care.)
There was exactly one screaming baby on the flight from there to here, and that baby was seated directly behind me. She didn’t just cry, she wailed for thousands of miles, only to fall asleep just before the plane touched down. Fortunately my movie on demand thingie started working, and there was an option with subtitles. Pan’s labyrinth was pretty good.
There’s something about the breakfast snack served on airplanes that unfailingly gives me heartburn. The dinners I cope with all right, but whatever the mystery ingredient is in those breakfasts, it kills me, every time, on every airline.
And that’s about it.
