Repeat

5.41am and you find yourself at an airport, thankful for the wifi, one step closer to what internet will inevitably be: ubiquitously free. 5.41 has a long story to tell. On how the distance from your house to the metro station in town is not 45 minutes of boozed up euphoric walking home, but rather can be a 21 minute walking race on the soundtrack of Daft Punk Alive. Still, that left you another 15 minutes to find the Red Nest Hostel you've been walking by so often, and ask if they would be so kind to print out your boarding pass. You tell them you couldn't find a printer, because really, do you wanna start explaining to the sort-of-cooperative desk clerk that just 4 hours before, you tried to take out 20 euro's from the ATM and it said NO. Not in those words of course. More of a 'Go fuck yourself' kind of way, but then more cryptically polite. That, and you rushed back home to check what you already know through your online backing service. That, and transferring a random total of 5.43eurocents from your savings account (if you can call that) to your current account, reaching just about 21.43 euro's on what you hope will later be functioning ATM machine at the airport. So of course, I don't tell the clerk all that. He says 'help yourself' and I sit down behind the pc and sure, the cool internet-time-pressured-email transfer-external-hard-drive-on-line-booking-boarding-pass situation hasn't escaped your mind while you mac away bit and bytes for a noble cause. Press print, run, welcome on board. Talking to my mate Youri up until 4am was probably not a genius idea either. Pack, run, repeat. Looking back, it wouldn't had been a bad idea to take a bigger sip of my apple juice. Not forgetting my keys on my desk would also make things nicer. Check bag, curse, repeat. Exactly one hour later, you get on board of what you thought was the earliest metro at the closest station from home, but asking the two security guards will inform you that tramline 3 starts way earlier and way closer to where you just ran from. Thank, curse, repeat. Thank the security agents for not taking away your 75cl deodorant. Ask politely for the latest security measures, receive pamphlet while she nags about how the rules are the same still 1997. Shut up, turn around, repeat. 5.54 am, priority boarding will commence. 20 euro's should get me all the way to delft. Finding a dutch student whose discount priced trainticket applies to me as well would make things nicer. I wouldn't mind a bottle of apple juice. But I'll make it one way or another. Save, reboot, repeat.

Tal Benisty