We left the house at 4:45pm to DFW and arrived at 5:30pm. Our flight was not even until 8:50, so thank goodness because we rode the sky rail around a few times. The sky rail goes to each of the four terminals, and gives a great view of the airport from all sides. I highly recommend arriving earlier than usual for a flight at DFW so this adventure can be at least once (it is only 12 minutes total). We figured out that our terminal had changed, and we rushed up to the sky rail to take us to our new terminal so we could figure out our seats because the flight was booked.
I sat in 15B, and a lady in my row, as I was trying to stuff my duffel bag into the already full overhead compartments, started yelling to me in Spanish. I was surprised at first because it was not just the Spanish like what I am used to being from Texas, but it was a deep Argentinean Spanish, as I later learned. She physically got from her seat, handed me her cup of coffee, took my bag from my shoulder, and somehow crammed it into the compartment. (I can’t help wondering whether this scenario demonstrates the awareness of humanity and its drive to genuinely help others or the more condescending approach of pity and aggravation.) “Gracias, Gracias, lo siento, millgracias,” I replied. She looked down at me above her glasses, although she was only about 5’1, and gave me the “happy to help a needy person, yeah yeah, don’t mention it even if you could in my language” type of look. I smiled, proceeded to ask her where she was from and such, and I learned that she was with the Argentinian futbol team that was on the plane! No wonder she gave me the “yeah yeah” look. She fell asleep shortly after which took a lot of pressure off of me to keep up appearances – 3.5 hours of a conversation in a different language with a temperamental tired and probably famous lady would have been extremely stressful, so Io pulled out my pocketbook Aristotle, turned up my “Foster the People” playlist, and wondered how the situation would have turned out differently had I not squeezed my Salvation Army boots into my carry-on bag. The series of odd events did not stop there. Mum had also made two friends who proceeded to stalk us all the way to Sydney. Both were very nice gentlemen, and I hope the rest of their travels are going well. Our LAX to SYD flight on Qantas did not even take off until 2:53am Fort Worth time.
The Toowoolong 747 plane sure is beautiful.... from the outside.
