"Every Time You Cross the Intl Date Line You Lose Brain Cells," says Science--this is proof

Since I write about my life, and a good portion of my life takes place in airports, here are some more musings from my most recent cross-continental trip in bullet-point form:

·      Asian airports are often superior in terms of offering free internet options.

·      Being able to understand multiple languages, specifically the ones announcing up-coming flights can often have the effect of giving one a massive headache. Really—there’s no rest for the brain listening to soothing mysterious syllables when your brain keeps trying to understand the scratchy voices of the announcers.

·      Here is a confession of a lone traveler: I often have conversations with myself in my own mind. These conversations are not always in English. When surrounded by multiple languages that I speak, sometimes I forget which language I am using to converse with myself. Fortunately, this bothers no one but the voices in my head. We often communicate by mixing and matching our favorite words…对，es possible que我 might be sedikit مجنون  हूँ।

·      When traveling on an airplane originating in China but picking up passengers in India, do not expect there to be any empty seats anywhere. Flights that hit the two most populous countries in the world in one go will always be full. Always. Also, Chinese people talk loudly. Indian people usually get served their vegetarian meals first, since they specially ordered it. African travelers on Asian flights seem to be quite diverse, and I can’t think of any stereotypes for them, but I did notice that it became harder and harder to see over all the tall people the closer I got to Africa.

·      Check-in people in India are only vaguely familiar with Ugandan travel regulations for foreigners, and they will follow the rules very carefully, including making the foreigner sign a form promising that the email from MAF in her phone is a legitimate form of onward transportation to South Sudan, as required by Ugandan law.

Also, my dream finally came true of being able to answer the question, “Does anyone here speak ________?” In this case it was two concerned Arab men, who had the unfortunate distinction of looking like Hollywood’s idea of terrorists. They started to explain to me that someone had taken their passports and walked away somewhere. I helpfully replied, “They did what?!” and calmed their nerves considerably. Fortunately, at that moment when I was getting ready to go fight for my Arab brothers and their passports, the Indian transit official brought them their travel documents. Happy and relieved, the nice Arab terrorist-like men gave me some lovely chocolates in gratitude for me doing absolutely nothing for them. (عادي)

"Don miss" this exciting display of globes in the
Lonely Planet Store in the KL Airport--my new favorite store in the world!

So now I’m back in South Sudan, and we managed to land in spite of the fact that the airstrip is overgrown a bit with tall grass.  The MAF pilot insisted I cut the grass on the airstrip before they would come pick me up in November. Fortunately, other people have to leave before me, so I think they’ve already handled the grass-cutting issues. And I say, just let a flock of goats and/or cows at it.

And this dude and his cow could totally mosey
 on over to the airstrip and get busy.