The thing about airports

Six years ago I went on an adventure. I had just finished high school and I had decided I wanted to go to Australia for a year before I would start studying. And on this day six years ago, I did just that. I said goodbye to everyone and everything I knew, got on a plane that took me halfway around the world and on Friday August 6th, 2004 I landed in Melbourne in the middle of the night.

Last Wednesday I was at Schiphol airport for an interview, and as I walked around there I thought back to that moment six years ago when I got on my plane to Melbourne. How nervous yet excited I was, because I would be gone for a whole year and it was my first big trip without my parents. How much I really didn't know what I was actually doing and why I wanted to do this again, and how at that moment nothing seemed scarier than walking through those gates towards The Great Unknown. How all that fell away though when I landed in Melbourne some 30 hours later and was greeted by the smiling faces of Phoebe and Ness, and a few minutes later also dad and Jack.

Looking at all those people at the airport, I couldn't help but wonder what their stories were. Maybe there was an exchange student just like me six years ago, being nervous about leaving to go on their exciting adventure somewhere in the world, thinking about whose smiling faces she'd see greeting her at the airport of her destination. Maybe those two guys giving each other a big bear hug were two brothers who hadn't seen each other in too long, so happy just to be back in the same country again. Maybe that girl that was biting her nails, anxiously checking all the people that came out into the arrival hall couldn't wait to have her boyfriend by her side again after only one week apart. I didn't stick around long enough to watch the reunion, so I'll never know.

I don't know, there's just always something about airports. Every emotion is magnified, whether it's the joy of someone returning home, the sadness of someone leaving or the excitement and/or anxiousness about the trip ahead. It gives the place a special atmosphere that somehow always makes me smile. To me, airports are always a positive place, even when I'm the one dreading to say goodbye. I guess it's because underneath it all, airports are a place filled with love. Because why else would someone drive all the way to the airport, often wait there for long periods of time staring at a closed door, just to pick someone up? Why else would someone bother to come out to the airport to say goodbye? I believe it's love, in all its shapes and sizes. And I can't help but smile because of it. Hope you're all smiling too, keeping well.
Love Carine