Surabaya (Day 18, Thursday, 081309)

Final morning. We wake at five and arrive at the airport at six. I haven't printed out my boarding pass (you're supposed to do that?), and Eric says I'm lucky.

I'm an American, which means the same thing. (With all its magnificent and tawdry connotations.)

The security folks accept my American passport as proof that I'm not a criminal or a freedom fighter or a combination of the two.

After dropping off our checked bags, Eric and I head back out to a small airport cafe: Frestea pour moi and hot chocolate for Eric.

When Eric's left, I settle myself against a pillar and though I'm not looking forward to another five hour layover in Singapore, and yet another one in Hong Kong, I'm not unexcited to go home.

Here's a phalanx of Avon convention attendees all shouldering powder blue faux leather handbags. They look very self-important and satisfied.

But maybe I'm just projecting. [grin]

A trio of burka'd ladies sails by, three sets of eyes turning toward me as I sit cross-legged on the ground, ponytailed, black tank top carelessly layered over a black bikini-top, a pair of black scrubs.

We match, a study in monochrome, but the polar opposite on either side of some kind of spectrum.

I imagine we're both judging and pitying each other in equal parts, wondering how the other could dress that way, how she doesn't seem to understand the oppression inherent to the way the other (the Other!) displayed or didn't display the female body.

Or something.

On the flight home, I get progressively more sick, and when we reach Hong Kong, I'm beset by a bevy of yellow signage urging anyone who has felt the following symptoms: runny nose, stuffed nose, headache, body aches (check, check, check, and check) to report to an on-site medical worker.

I can't stomach the thought of being sick in a foreign country or the thought of some kind of fascist quarantine resulting from swine flu fear-mongering.

So I keep my head down and try not to let my conscience (hypochondria?) trick me into doing something that'll make my life more miserable than need be.

Like my trip to Baja, Mexico in the midst of an eruption of drug cartel-related violence, my trip to Indonesia was perfectly timed: shortly after the Jakarta hotel bombings, and in the heart of swine flu Season.

Next stop, a road trip to the Pacific N.W.

Maybe Mount Rainier will become active and spew flaming lava while I'm in the vicinity.