Stuck in airport. Airlines suck. Have not seen a United Airlines rep in a couple hours, my flight is gone from the arrivals (presumably because it’s circling the airspace), and everyone has been simmering or watching DVDs or whatever else they feel like doing for the past two or three hours. I started playing Prof. Layton and got like 1:30h in before deciding that maybe I should also look for flight updates.
Anyway, it was boring. Surprise. Most of the other people did not make their connections, but it’s about ten minutes before Dubai takeoff and everything is working so far. Fear of flying doesn’t make that big an impact because I just zone it out. I am not really scared of flying, just of either the relatively fragile shell puncturing or a wing ripping off or something equally likely going on in the general area of my person. And what a weird and irrational fear that is.
I am having SECOND THOUGHTS I guess it would be referred to as but really I wanted to do this to deliberately make myself uncomfortable for Greater Personal Growth, so if that doesn’t pay off I will hopefully just send huge quantities of bangles and textiles back and make lots and lots of money, because that is what happens when you hawk customs-checked imported wares.
Guy next to me on the flight to Dubai was involved in some charity work for students involved in exchanges to/from India. I don't really know anything about it. Anyway, he was excited that I was doing this craaaazy thing, totally nuts, very odd. And he got me a little excited about it, too. Recommendations: place outside of Agra, some temple within the city (or its environs), also highly recommended visiting the Telugu film studio. He hasn’t been to India in 30 years or something crazy, so roundabouts the not so great time. He was also very nice and interested in Smithsonian cultural outreach events and other things.
Dubai from the sky kind of looks like a giant LiteBrite, but the only discernible pictures are guitars and scorpions. I don’t know how I feel about Dubai in an existential way, not that it particularly matters how I feel about it. But it does.. to me. Saw some gossamer towers, saw a lot of excess— the entire airport is basically a shopping mall. I walked past a kiosk where they were selling lottery tickets. Be a double millionaire! Or win a new car. In my mind, a migrant worker weakened by the midday sun wept. It was very poignant. Also, the airport is so huge, and I had to walk from the middle to the end and with the speed-up strips it took 20 minutes of very brisk walking. Intense. To some extent it looks like a futuristic hospital. It would be cool if it weren’t so ostentatious, but then it would not be in Dubai.
There have been so many unnecessary stressors in the past 24ish hours. The first flight was delayed two hours, the second flight I ran to catch, the third was in the furthest gate possible, it seemed, and it was overbooked or something so some people couldn’t get boarding passes because they weren’t technically on it. I walked on the plane and saw approx.. 100 Indian faces staring back at me and dumb as it seems, that’s what it took to make me realize what an irregularity I will be.
I was trying to think of American stereotypes. Or not even American, just white-people. America is, I gather, viewed as the fading captain of industry, particularly in India and China, where we’ve exported a good deal of our work. But apart from that, I feel like the only Hyderabadi stereotypes for white people are that they’re kind of liberal (relative), kind of decadent (also relative), and usually there for business. I’m not even entirely sure what liberalism is in India, apart from a departure from their traditional values, which is kiiind of a universal. What specifically? The way we dress, behave towards men, talk, generally comport ourselves? Ideas we espouse? Everything? Are liberalism and conservatism just broad universal categories? Yeah, I guess so. Vikings!
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