The Substance of Things

I am generally not a materialist.  I don't crave things before I have them, and I usually don't miss them when they're gone.  So, while I expected that I would miss Steve and Michaela and model railroading and Bobcat football, I was a little surprised that I missed big cars and American junk food before I'd even left the Minneapolis airport.

With that said, here are some things I gained an appreciation for during my first day and a half of travel.

1.  Corners and ends of rows

In Bozeman, I can go almost anywhere at almost any time and find a nice seat where I'm not surrounded on all sides by many people I don't know.  Such places are evidently not as easy to find in the rest of the world, though it's certainly doable if you're awake at 3AM because of air travel and time differences.

2.  The Boeing 777

Step into one of these birds, and you know right away that they were built for international travel.  The seats in first class look like lounge chairs and recline all the way down to a 180-degree angle.  There's a ton of economy comfort seating; those seats are wide enough for my shoulders, unlike the economy comfort sections on most airplanes.  Even the regular economy seats looked like they had more room than usual.  I was about as comfortable on the airplane as I would have been on MSU campus during a crowded part of the day.

3.  Empty middle seats

This is self-explanatory.  Shoulder room is good.  Elbow room is good.  I've also made my top two all-time favorite airplane acquaintances over empty middle seats, although that could have been a coincidence.

4.  College football

Five people from three different companies are going to four different cities and seated in the same general area of one two-leg international flight, and all of us know that the SEC is much tougher to get out of undefeated than any conference short of the AFC.

5.  McDonald's

I know that if I'm out of the country for two years, so I should expand my cultural experiences.  I plan to. But when it's 2:30 in the morning, and I haven't eaten since 2:30 in the afternoon, it's nice to go somewhere that is open and has a menu I recognize written in a language I read.

6.  Bilingualism

I don't speak Japanese, Mandarin or Malay, but a lot of helpful people in Tokyo and Singapore spoke English.

7.  Clear, well-placed signage

I hardly notice the signs in Minneapolis after walking through that airport hundreds of times, but I did notice that the airplane I caught there had two boarding doors and no sign to indicate which was better for me to use.  I had to guess.  Tokyo, in contrast, had a very sign clearly indicating which door was which.  The signage there was very good in general, and those in Singapore somewhat less so.

8.  The Singapore Airport

Signage aside, popular consensus is that the Singapore airport is the best airport in the world.  I plan to post about it later, but without spoiling that too much, I have to say that I agree with popular consensus.