“So many destination faces going to so many places
Where the weather is much better
And the booze is so much cheaper.
Well I help her with her baggage - for her baggage is so heavy -
I hear the plane is ready, by the gateway, to take my love away.
Airport – you’ve got a pretty face,
Airport - you've got a smiling face,
you took the one I love so far away.”
- '70s marvels The Motors
Unlike most people I know, I enjoy going to the airport and not catching a flight. This is possibly what the French would call a "déformation professionnelle." In any case, I enjoy the artificial calmness and the suppressed excitement, the sense that one is at the crossroads of thousands of destinies and, more terrestrially, the women in sharp uniforms. This is represented perfectly in Brian Eno's Music for Airports (must remember to rip this from vinyl.)
On a recent winter morning, due to "Industrial Action" (the French language enjoys the equally oxymoronic "Movement Social") my easyjet flight to Geneva was cancelled. Notwithstanding the fact that I'd risen at 5 AM to get to the airport, I did enjoy my hot chocolate whilst admiring aircraft weaving through the fog on the tarmac.
If you're at Orly Sud, take the escalator leading towards the chapel/mosque/synagogue, and go up one more level. There's a quiet, reasonably-priced café there, with an unspoilt view onto the tarmac.
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