Those that know me well will know that I just love flying. It is one of the best ways to get from A to B in a hurry – or it used to be. These days getting to an airport and onto the plane might take as long as your plane journey. When flying to Durban from Johannesburg, it takes about 40 minutes to get to the airport, another 40 minutes to get airborne as a minimum and then about 20 minutes to get to the car rental. The flight time is about 60 minutes. What a pity.
But getting onto the plane for the flight has a certain magic to it for me. The seats, the food, the magazines, all of it somehow reminds me of my dream to see all sorts of far-away places. You get out of the tube with wings, walk onto another continent or island and you are suddenly part of a new culture. The air is different, the daylight casts a different shadow and even the people look different. There are different smells as well.
I remember my first visit to New York in 1992. After a long and tiring flight from Johannesburg to London and then to New York, and after a taxi ride that took forever, I finally found myself in a small room in an even tinier hotel just off Times Square. As I later walked out into the cold night air I was aware of a scent I never smelt before: I soon located the source, a Wendy’s, about a block away! My first real introduction to VERY fast food was scary to say the least.
Many years later, in Linnköping in Sweden, I had a sudden sensation of being where I belong. Walking through some snow back to my hotel after a stroll around town, I looked at the people cycling past and my soul screamed out for being part of that place. Where I have always felt that I was “home” when I walked out of the airport at Johannesburg after a long overseas flight, this time was different. I walked off the plane and felt sorrow for having to return. The smells and scents were familiar, but it was not mine anymore.
Every trip has added to my life, enriching me and convincing me that not everything about globalisation is bad. Those that fear the world and the currents of change will be washed away. Those governments that put up barriers to the free flow of people and skill will suffer for it. The people that are fanatic about preserving their cultures and languages will lose it in the hugeness of the diversity out there. We must learn to carry culture with us, in our hearts, and to enrich it with experience. What is culture today was new a century ago.
But back to airplanes: have you ever thought about those fantastic machines? Which one is or was your favourite? I always loved flying in a Boeing 727. It was such a novel design. It was fast! It was quiet inside! It was the mark of “far away” for me. I like the 747 too, and the 737 is great, but the 727 stands for me as the icon of the new age. Yes, I know about the other planes, the Comet, the McDonald Douglas machines and today the oh-so uninspiring Airbus aircraft. Anyway, I hope you will be going somewhere exotic soon and that you will think about the marvels of modern technology while you do. I’m going to Italy (Rome) soon for the first time and then I’m off to Stockholm for a couple of days. I’m so looking forward to the trip.
For the aircraft fanatics, go visit http://www.airliners.net/ . The picture at the top is from a great photographer in Australia, David Morell. Go visit him at http://www.davidmorrell.com/index.cfm.
But getting onto the plane for the flight has a certain magic to it for me. The seats, the food, the magazines, all of it somehow reminds me of my dream to see all sorts of far-away places. You get out of the tube with wings, walk onto another continent or island and you are suddenly part of a new culture. The air is different, the daylight casts a different shadow and even the people look different. There are different smells as well.
I remember my first visit to New York in 1992. After a long and tiring flight from Johannesburg to London and then to New York, and after a taxi ride that took forever, I finally found myself in a small room in an even tinier hotel just off Times Square. As I later walked out into the cold night air I was aware of a scent I never smelt before: I soon located the source, a Wendy’s, about a block away! My first real introduction to VERY fast food was scary to say the least.
Many years later, in Linnköping in Sweden, I had a sudden sensation of being where I belong. Walking through some snow back to my hotel after a stroll around town, I looked at the people cycling past and my soul screamed out for being part of that place. Where I have always felt that I was “home” when I walked out of the airport at Johannesburg after a long overseas flight, this time was different. I walked off the plane and felt sorrow for having to return. The smells and scents were familiar, but it was not mine anymore.
Every trip has added to my life, enriching me and convincing me that not everything about globalisation is bad. Those that fear the world and the currents of change will be washed away. Those governments that put up barriers to the free flow of people and skill will suffer for it. The people that are fanatic about preserving their cultures and languages will lose it in the hugeness of the diversity out there. We must learn to carry culture with us, in our hearts, and to enrich it with experience. What is culture today was new a century ago.
But back to airplanes: have you ever thought about those fantastic machines? Which one is or was your favourite? I always loved flying in a Boeing 727. It was such a novel design. It was fast! It was quiet inside! It was the mark of “far away” for me. I like the 747 too, and the 737 is great, but the 727 stands for me as the icon of the new age. Yes, I know about the other planes, the Comet, the McDonald Douglas machines and today the oh-so uninspiring Airbus aircraft. Anyway, I hope you will be going somewhere exotic soon and that you will think about the marvels of modern technology while you do. I’m going to Italy (Rome) soon for the first time and then I’m off to Stockholm for a couple of days. I’m so looking forward to the trip.
For the aircraft fanatics, go visit http://www.airliners.net/ . The picture at the top is from a great photographer in Australia, David Morell. Go visit him at http://www.davidmorrell.com/index.cfm.
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