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I could easily spend a week in an airport terminal, chatting with travelers from around the world. You can find the most fascinating people from all walks of life in airports. Trust me on this.

A) Isabel… a customer service representative in baggage claim who has witnessed three deaths while on duty.
B) Lance… a bass guitarist who used to work for Shania Twain.
C) Nora… a sprite 26-year-old law student at the London School of Economics.
D) Chris… an airplane steward, and easily the most metrosexual man I have ever met.

And for reference, here are links to maps of the O’Hare and Newark Airport Terminals.

A) Isabel… a baggage claim worker who has personally witnessed three deaths in the airport: two were heart attacks (an elderly woman and an elderly man), but the latest was a 4-year-old girl who came to America for medical treatment. She died in her father’s arms in Terminal C. Isabel is Portuguese. With a name like Isabel, I suppose that should come as no surprise. We spoke about family, and she shared a wonderful story about her 5-year-old nephew, the product of a marriage between a Lebanese man and a Brazilian woman. As a result, this child speaks four languages fluently (Portuguese, Arabic, English, Spanish). Everyone tells her nephew he has beautiful eyes. One day he says, “Everyone tells me I’ve got beautiful eyes. Why not beautiful hair, a beautiful mouth, nose or ears?” One part of our conversation held implications for public policy. Isabel met her future husband at age 12, started dating him at 15, then married at 18. Her husband is three years older. Thus, her husband was 15 (vs. 12) when they met, 18 (vs. 15) when she was dating, and 21 (vs. 18) when they married. In many states, their relationship would have landed her husband in jail. She told me of a 20/20 episode she watched where an 18-year-old boy served three years in jail for sleeping with a 14-year-old girl. Prison didn’t sever their faith in one another. The father who pressed charges came to regret his actions, since immediately after the trial, he came to appreciate the depth of feeling these two lovers shared. Why was I at baggage claim? I needed to track and lock down a lost suitcase. Isabel came in clutch.

B) Lance… the bass guitarist who worked for Shania Twain and Mutt Lange. I met Lance, strangely enough, in the mens’ bathroom near Newark’s Gate C-103. The stalls were full when I entered so I joined a queue. As he exited his stall, he shook his head. ‘The last person in here smoked up a fury,’ he announced. ‘It smells like cigarette fumes. I can understand addiction… I used to be addicted myself, but when you get to the point of smoking in airport stalls…’ Rolling his eyes, he trailed off. I thought that’s where our interaction would end, but then I found myself next to his wife on the plane.
Lance is a bass guitarist who has worked for years in the music industry. Most of his work is done in the country music scene. He worked for eight months as Twain’s bass guitarist. He’s not on the album… it’s not unusual for the bassist on the album to be different than the bassist who tours. While on tour with Shania, he became close with Shania Twain’s future husband, Mutt Lange.
He was headed with his wife and a friend named Stephanie to London to work in a Christian service mission, teaching Christian spirituals set to country tunes. I volunteered to exchange seats with Stephanie so that their group could sit together during the seven hour flight. Lance sent a beer over my way. We exchanged contact info. I’ll be meeting up with him again later this week for an English ale at a nearby pub.
While we were going through customs in London, Lance was the first of us to notice that the crowd was separated into three ‘queues’: one for EU citizens, one for citizens from other countries, and one line filled only with what Lance called “dark skinned people”. It looked like old-school segregation to both of us. I asked a customs agent why there was a separate line for blacks. She explained that it was because citizenship documentation from Western, Eastern and Central Africa is often difficult to interpret, and if African travelers, immigrants, refugees and workers weren’t separated from the others, the line for citizens from first-world nations would be far slower. She concluded by saying, “That’s the theory.” Then she turned warily back to the next traveler.

C) Nora… a sprite law student at LSE. She sat directly beside me on the way to London. She was returning from a three-day shopping trip with her mother to New York City. She speaks four languages (German, English, French and Italian). Her mother is German (German & English) and her father is French. Her parents live in Paris, where she was raised. After college, Nora lived in Milan for several years and learned the Italian language there. Surprisingly, Nora didn’t enjoy Milan. She says she would have much rather lived in Rome. She disliked Milan’s (s)lavish devotion to the fashion industry. I asked her about her London experience. She recommended restaurants in the East End to me before checking out for her beauty sleep. Around 2am, I stepped over her to befriend the airplane stewards.

D) Chris… an airplane steward, and the most metrosexual man I’ve met. He was flirtatious to an extreme. He’s been working the US->UK plane routes for Continental Airlines for what he says feels like years. He enjoys the work and the lifestyle. The rest of what he told me is too outrageous to publish. So outrageous, in fact, that like many others who have shared their lives with me, I’ve chosen to voluntarily conceal his real name.

The stewards fed me well. They hooked me up with two extra portions of hearty lasagna. Good deal. I can’t wait for my next plane flight.