A Veritable Sea of iPads

The international waiting room at the Manyhappiness airport has been transformed. In fact it is nearly unrecognizable. Someone with a tech and food obsesssion has transformed it. I thought I was lost when I followed the signs for the gate. I kept on ending up in a big cafeteria. But that’s where the signs were pointing to so I fandered on through. There were cooked and cold foods in several rows on the right and the left. It seems that someone thinks passengers should eat fresh fruits and vegetables while waiting. I could  even have bought a grapefruit -  tho I can’t see who would want to eat a grapefruit in the airport and with what? Even if you could manage to cut it without a knife, ever try eating grapefruit with a plastic spoon? And who wants to eat a bunch of fiber just before an international flight anyway??? And how sanitary is it that all sorts of people wander through the cafeteria?

On the other side of the cafeteria I at last found the waiting room itself and it has been transformed.

There are still a few traditional waiting room seats marked for handicapped and priority boarding. Perhaps around the outside wall hidden behind the other stuff there were some other unmarked seats for ordinary passengers but the entire center of the hall is now a maze of rows of one and two seater booths with standing iPads. It looks like a giant restaurant with a veritable sea of iPads. There was a bar counter along one side with stools. Not finding anywhere else to sit, I sat in a one seater booth and stared at the ads on the iPad which seemed to be things you could order form the bar thingy.  I didn’t check to see if the internet icon would actually let me cruise the internet as I was feeling rather overwhelmed by the all the visual glitz. I guess for electronics addicts  maybe it’s gives them comfort to see that sea of iPads but for someone who values a bit of peace and calm, and gets headaches from too much wi-fi, it was quite distracting and overwhelming. Maneuvering computer bag and backpack thru the maze was a bit challenging as well.

I use electronics too but I also don’t mind a break from them…

I had looked around the airport for a drinking fountain, and even asked a couple of people whose job seemd to be giving information where a drinking fountain was. Only one person could tell me – it was located in that international waiting room, hidden in a corner by the bathroom beyond the new “bar”.  And maybe it is the only remaining drinking fountain in the entire airport. I guess you’re supposed to buy coffee or bottled water now days and maybe that's why there is a sea of iPads...