A Glimpse into Other People's Lives

By "other people" I don't mean the type of people who own that stately home, where I spent two nights last week, but the type of people whose business trips are much less "holiday-like" than mine. One of the reasons why I always tell people they don't need to pity me for my at times pretty frequent business travelling (early flights aside) is that in general, I have enough time to see something of the city I am in, be it for sightseeing, shopping or discovering nice cafés or restaurants. Quite often, all of the above. This time tough, I was in a really impressive place and did not get to explore any of its surroundings. In fact, I ended up being"locked in" all day on Thursday and did not get any fresh air that day at all, which I can't remember doing in years (!). It was o.k. , but it really made me think that this is reality and summary of every single work day of a lot of people, who typically fly in and out of a city the same day, have meetings at airports, stay at nondescript airport hotels, and might have "been" to a city dozens of times without having experienced anything other than its airport terminals, taxis and conference rooms. I really consider myself lucky that this is NOT the norm for me, but an exception that struck me as quite surreal.