Three Hundred

This has been the best flight of my life. I ate,  slept, was taken care of like a distinguished member of a precious multinational cargo. In Korea there are loud and silent goodbyes amongst the passengers , as we all rush through the transfer stations. The standard of this place is beyond what I could have imagined. Clinically clean and ordered but with some distinctly colourful ornaments and decorative touches. I am not easily impressed by this much order but I don’t think I have ever seen an airport like this before. Even queuing is short: there were definitely a hundred of more passengers standing in line and I am in a few minutes at the passport control desk. At this sterile but strangely welcoming destination stop, I am serviced by a young Korean passport controller. The queue has stopped moving and he is looking at my passport and at the computer, then again at my passport, then at me. As this strange interaction continues I begin to worry. I have not come that far to be stopped in Korea. And what could the problem be? Has something escaped my obsessive mind?  And then he mutters something indecipherable. He looks too happy to be delivering a bad message.

‘Sparta!’ 300 Hundred! Greece!’

He has never met anyone from Greece before and wants to ask me many questions but the Australian behind me flying to Melbourne in 40 minutes is not amused.

I smile and kindly accept the stereotype.

Today I will be one of the 300! Long live Thermopulea.