There's a scene in It's A Wonderful Life when George Bailey and his uncle Billy are waiting for Harry at the trainstation and George asks Billy, "You know what the three most exciting sounds in the world are?"

"Sure. 'Breakfast is served.' 'Lunch is served.' 'Dinner is..."

"Nah, nah, nah...train whistles, plane engines and anchor chains."

Well, that's a paraphrase, but you get the idea.

I was checking the Saskatoon Airport Authority webpage to figure out if they have departure and arrival times on display, which they do. My dad is arriving back home from Sweden tonight - spending the Easter weekend and then heading back in a week - and I have to pick him up. I hate having to call those numbers and wait through a list of flight numbers, and at the same time, I don't want to just assume that the flights are on time (they never are). At the same time, I love the airport.

Airports are pretty much my favourite places in the world. I love the smell of jet engine fuel, and the way that airports are like their own private worlds. I haven't had the chance to spend as much time in airports in the last 4 years as I would have liked (travel is expensive), but the times I have spent in my life were memorable.

There was the time two summers ago, when I took a different flight to LA than my mom and Aren, and then I ended up hanging out in the main terminal at LAX for a couple of hours. What a crazy place! None-the-less I had a good time exploring, and even got offered some cracy religious literature by some homeless guy.

Then there was the time me and Matthew were travelling alone at age 13 and had to spend a 5 hour layover in Frankfurt. We were supposed to stay in the kids area, but we figured we were old enough and had a good time exploring that airport.

So airports are good places. Full of excitement of travel and interesting things to see. That must be why I liked The Terminal so much at first (although Ewan will be happy to hear my enthusiasm for it has faded somewhat): the idea of living in an airport isn't so repulsive to me.

I'm also reminded of the opening of the film Love, Actually - and yes I know there are a lot of movie references in this post - when Hugh Grant is talking about how airports show the love of humanity. It's pretty true. You rarely see people unhappy in airports, unless it's the good kind of unhappy, in that they know they are going ot miss the people they love. And really, that's a good thing.