Dubai International Airport functions as a vast, busy hub where long layovers allow extensive roaming through shops, eateries, and amenities. Travelers encounter gold shops, global chains, camel's milk chocolate, Cuban cigars, and a Zen Garden while hearing multiple languages. Late-night choices can include perfume sampling and a 2 a.m. pedicure beside fellow passengers such as a U.S. Marine. The terminal blends familiarity with disorientation, creating a sensation of being anywhere and nowhere. A literary image about souls lagging behind bodies on long flights resonates here. Extended layovers provide quiet time for reflection and taking stock before onward travel.
While returning to the U.S. a dozen years ago from a reporting assignment in Kabul, I had a long layover at the Dubai International Airport and got to know it well its ebb and flow from quiet to clamor and back, as passengers from all over the planet arrived and left. With hours to fill between flights, I roamed for miles around this colossal airport, the busiest international hub in the world.
I heard Arabic, Hindi, English, Chinese and French. I spritzed myself with perfume at the duty-free shops and decided to get a pedicure at 2 a.m. The man sitting next to me getting his feet done at that hour was a U.S. Marine. The mix of familiarity and disorientation at the airport made me feel I might be anywhere, everywhere and nowhere at all.
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