Text, Sleeping in Silence (Travel)

When I was young and traveling with my family I used to look at all of these travelers and backpackers at the airport and think they were so, very, cool. The way they dressed, the way they moved, the way they carried around a million things, listening to a Walkman while juggling water, chips and literature from an airport store. They looked so important somehow these people. They didn't have any suits or fancy briefcases, but they looked as if they were going places for real, learning about life, exploring the world. They seemed to somehow be content within themselves. Young bodies, old eyes and laughing faces. They didn't care about convention either. Sure they were friendly and courteous, but they did what they wanted to.

The girl snuggling up with her worn out jeans and bare feet on the cushy lounge chair overlooking the airport hall with a Kafka book in hand, humming some strange tune I'd never heard before. The guys taking turns sleeping on a row of stuffed chairs with metal edges. Two of them playing cards to keep each other awake while their buddies slept so that everyone would get their sleep and no one would get their luggage stolen. The lone, young woman dressed all in white linen hurriedly walking along to the international flights with her cabin bag rolling behind her and her tickets kept in a tight grip. The guy catching a ride with our taxi to the layover hotel. Young people going places. I used to imagine where they had been, where they were going, what they thought and felt as they waited twelve hours straight for their flights to start up again. Going out, going home, going somewhere...

Then of course it was my turn to grow up, my turn to travel and see the world on my own. But it's funny, even after I've been places, seen and done amazing things I still get that magical feeling when I look at young travelers at the airport. Even when I've been the one dressed all in white after the hottest summer ever at the continent to land in Stockholm and almost freeze to death in the pouring rain outside, waiting for the taxi cab to -please come pick me up soon. When I myself have gotten to the point when traveling that I simply didn't care anymore, laid down on those metal edged chairs with my laptop in a firm grip as my pillow, praying that I would hear the alarm go off before my flight while listening to my favorite travel CD. Wishing fervently for silence at the same time, just needing to rest and sleep undisturbed by motor sounds and air sickness and rowdy, drunken people on vacation.

I've crept up in those lounge chairs myself with sandy, naked feet, reading a paperback book, ignoring the looks from the business travelers. They'd do it too, given half a chance. I've waited 2 hours for flights, I've waited 13. And lord knows I didn't care about the coolness factor when my parents treated me to a layover at a hotel that once. The hotel concierge calling me 'miss' which is more or less unheard of in Sweden barely rated a raised eyebrow because in just a few minutes I would finally be sleeping in a soft, comfortable bed, in silence.

I want to feel the magic. I want to go again!