Welcome to Nowhere

This may come as a great shock to most of you but… I like traveling! I don’t just mean seeing the sights, meeting the people, and eating the food of a place that most times had been completely unknown to me mere fractions of my lifetime prior to contact. These are things that define all of the joys that come to the millions of people who enjoy traveling, and I am sure we could all debate the merits, rewards, and even curses of travel for an eternity if we were so inclined. However, even the most seasoned traveler with the most immitigable wanderlust would probably agree that although nothing enriches their lives more than the experiences of a new place, the process of getting there leaves nothing but even the most minimal comforts to be desired. I am also guilty of joining the chorus of vehement complaints and protests aimed at layovers, long flights, lines, and airline food. But in the end, I rather like it!

No matter how many times I’ve endured the arduous and vacuous process of travel, I can’t help but take some kind of strangely bizarre enjoyment out of it. I enjoy it because in some special way, from the time I enter the airport of my departure point to the time that I exit the airport at my destination, I am no one. Sure, we are all anonymous strangers when we walk around in public.  However, when I travel, I can’t help but be acutely aware of the fact that I am no one, and in a uniquely peculiar way, I am NOWHERE.

The other day I was musing, as I had done so many other times before, over some of the states and countries I had been to that I would claim to have visited if only I had ever left airport. This thought came to me after several conversations I had that went something like this: “Donovan, have you ever been to Japan?” “Yes, sort of, I have been to Narita airport…” “Ahh, that doesn’t count.” I had had so many conversations like this at one point that I rhetorically asked my father in law if airports counted as actually visiting a place, to which he replied that they counted only if you had a story to tell about the place. Ergo, I have been to Japan because I have a story about chugging a souvenir microbrew in security when security officers tried to confiscate it.

In some ways, the very process of traveling to a new place (especially by airplane) presents one of the most bizarre phenomena that come along with traveling. As I said before, when I am in an airplane or wandering down the lonely corridors of X International Airport, I am no one and I am nowhere.  When I land in an airport where I know I will not venture out, I am always subconsciously looking for some sign that I am in the Shanghai international terminal as opposed to Detroit for example. The differences are often quite unremarkable if not completely undetectable.  In these places, even though there are hundreds people in your midst that hail directly from at least 50 different countries, there are no cultural norms to be adhered to and no particular platform for displaying national identity. This display of identity only happens if I catch a glimpse of a person’s passport cover in customs.

Even though I believe that I am ‘nowhere’ when I am in transit, I am always surprised to see how homogenous ‘nowhere’ can be, no matter where I am.  Whether it LAX, PDX, London, or Bangkok… Generally, I find ‘nowhere’ often consists of a McDonalds, newsstands, ugly carpet, horizontal escalators for lazy bastards (because we are well represented worldwide), hundreds of rows of pleather seats, and even a distinctive scent that is somewhere between an office building and new car smell.  And if I am lucky (or just the same if I am not) I will meet a new friend in transit with whom I will swap all kinds of information I might not even share with my best friends. And after I exit the airplane, we probably won’t say goodbye or exchange so much as a nod when or if we awkwardly meet again in baggage claim.

These are just a few thoughts that are passing through my head as a currently sit in ‘nowhere’ waiting to board my flight to Doha, Qatar from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At over 14 hours, this will be the longest time I have ever spent in ‘nowhere’ but Qatar Airways promises to be the best way to spend your time in ‘nowhere’ on your way to somewhere. Endless free beer here I come! And if this chapter of ‘nowhere’ is like everywhere else, it will be Heineken.

-Donovan

 Update:

Just to further illustrate this point, here are 4 pictures from our journey to/from home.  They are in no particular order and were taken in Addis, Doha, Chicago, and PDX.  Can you ID which was taken where?