Halloween (PHL to ORD to MEX to OAX)

 

I don’t know what I was thinking when I booked my itinerary for this trip: a 6 a.m. fight from Philadelphia to O’Hare, two hours in Chicago, then a 9 a.m. flight to Mexico City, then a five-hour layover before making my way to Oaxaca. It took me some time, in the surreal early-morning hours hours at the Philly airport, to realize why people were wearing costumes: It's Halloween.

I'm on the ORD to MEX flight, and I’ve started reading Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives—and become immediately engrossed. Ever since my 2003—or 2004, I don't remember—trip to Japan, I pack and read literature of the countries I’m visiting. On previous trips to Mexico I read through Juan Rufo’s Pedro Paramo, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela, and others by Carlos Fuentes, Rolo Diaz and Paco Ignacio Taibo II. My favorite Mexican American writers so far have been Guillermo Arriaga and Pedro Juan Gutierrez. (Even though Gutierrez isn't Mexican; he's Cuban. Bolaño is also technically Chilean, but writes from his years in Mexico City.)

The flight is like most other international flights: an interesting mix of people and languages between those returning to and those coming from. The guy the row in front of me to my right is, I’m pretty sure, from the U.S. He’s reading Never Trust a Liberal Over 3 (Especially a Republican), by America’s favorite liberal-baiting troll, Ann Coulter.

In-flight wi-fi is pretty cool, even if it is ten bucks.