De Vancouver to Santiago

I felt butterflies in my stomach that Saturday morning.   

  “Where is this coming from?” I asked myself out loud.  “I haven’t felt this way for a while.”

The day went by fast as I ran the last errands before taking off to Chile the next morning.  I left packing my bags and double checked the weight to avoid troubles at check in time.

On Sunday morning there were few people at the airport. The lights were dimmed, as if it was too early in the morning, it was too early!

  “The recession!” I thought. “Maybe it's just too early...no, it’s not that!”

While in line for the check in, I observed the attendants.  I noticed one in particular, checking everybody’s luggage’s weight.  Her face was longer than the rest, like an olive, curly black hair with a pony tail, her almond eyes and long nose made me think of people I’ve met before, by the book!

  “Maybe she's having troubles at home and she is taking us on for a payoff,” I wondered.

My theory is that people alike do things alike. I hoped that she would not not be the one to check me in.

I like to look at the travelers, I check their faces, who are they traveling with, their clothes, their shoes, their bags and their carry on.  I make a picture of who they are, their families, their friends, why they are traveling and such.  I make stories and categorize them in sets.

  “Next please,” a Phillipino attendant called to me.

  “I got lucky!” I thought, it was not the nasty one. 

  “Good morning, where are you traveling today?” she asked.

    “Have a great flight,” she said with a broad smile.  "You need to go to Gate E 80."

Then to customs, waiting for the flight to LA and the flight was uneventful.   

Read, snooze, read and land.

The plane arrived in LA and I felt that it was breakfast time again.  I looked around the food court of the Alaska Airlines domestic terminal for something appealing.  A sweet smell of cinnamon flooded the terminal.   Burger King...no, Starbucks...no, I wanted something more meaningful after my four month stint of hard-core diet.  Gladstone’s was the only Restaurant.  I looked at the tables where people were already eating, for something that appealed to me.  Scramble eggs with sausage looked good.

The place was almost full.  I ordered immediately since my belly was calling for food fast. I looked around and noticed that everybody was doing something, nobody just wondering. I took my time, I had 5 hours to wait until my next flight.  I kept on making stories about the people around.  The day was beautiful in LA, I walked to the next terminal slowly enjoying the fresh morning breeze, the light smell of airplane fumes and the noise of the cars going by.

Time flew and before I knew it I was boarding the Lan Chile brand new Airbus 340. 

  “Only men flight attendants? “ I observed.  “That’s weird.”

  “The flight will be 10 hours and 40 minutes.”  They announced first in Spanish and then in a strong accent English.

  “They must be reading from a script,” I though.  “How do I sound? Perhaps the same...I don’t want to think so!”

The man sitting next to me in the other side of the isle started an animated chat with me. He told me that he is in telecommunications and that he was going to Chile, Argentina and Bolivia on this trip.  He told me about his family, the family business Man Tires, the house in Santa Barbara that has 40 rooms, the Mercedes he bought foro his only son for his 16^th birthday and then he dug for pictures, yes, and the old paper ones and showed me everything.

  “Wow, this is going to be entertaining!” I thought.

The plane was awesome, the best thing was that they had individual screens at each seat that you could watch your own movie, TV, play games and what not.  They supplied great earphones that didn't fall out when I went to sleep.

  Thanks to the recession, the plane is not full!

I can't remember which movies I watched, I slept through every one of them.