In Washington, DC (Dulles)

Tue May 22 15:24:50 CDT 2007

Sitting in Dulles international airport, charging my laptop's battery and waiting for a flight to Copenhagen, a man walks past in a white T-shirt, black fedora, earphones on, and singing at a rather loud volume. He's accompanying his soulful music with his own mostly-but-not-always-in-tune notes, pausing mid-stride for emphasis as he hits some high falsettos. This place really is a mixture of humanity.

Ivy and I went to bed at 3AM this morning, only to wake up at 4:15 AM so that we could be ready for Ivy's mom to ferry us to DFW for our 9AM flight to Dulles. When we got to DFW, however, our flight had been cancelled, so we actually caught an earlier flight to Reagan airport, also in DC, but about 40 minutes by car away. No problems, however, because we had a nice flight and a nice cab ride with an interesting, jovial driver originally from Pakistan.

Now we wait, our 5-hour layover still much too long despite flying to a different airport. Only 30 minutes to boarding, however, and an hour until our flight. Our airplane has been sitting at the gate for at least two hours, while we've been sitting on the other side of the glass looking at it and wishing we could get on. Scandinavian airlines is even more punctual than I expected!

Every time Ivy sits down for more than a minute or two she falls asleep. For once, we don't anticipate any trouble sleeping on this flight. The usual airplane annoyances shouldn't keep us awake this time. Maybe an all-nighter the night before travel is the secret to sleeping on the plane and avoiding getting over jet lag? Sooooo tired!