Peeing on Airports

or: Can I love him? (France, Part I)

Nov 24, 2024

My flight leaves at 9:50am.

I am wide awake at 2:30.

Status quo travel neuroses aside, this is because of a day two years ago—a day much like this one—when I traveled with Django from Fethiye to Istanbul. On that day, I tried to check in and was cheerfully informed by the Turkish Airlines ladies that my dog wouldn’t be allowed on the plane in the carrier bag I had. This is despite the fact that we had flown with this same bag, on Turkish Airlines, six months previously.

We did make our the flight, but not before an extremely Turkish-style ordeal involving a man with truck and stuffing Django into a tube.

Today, I arrive armed with a brand new, collapsible mesh carrier bag.

No one gives it a second glance.

Nor does anyone ask to see Django’s papers, which have been meticulously stamped and approved by the correct authorities.

We settle into the departures area, pretending to be all relaxed, like normal people.

We eat snacks and watch the planes take off into the sunrise. This will be the first of two flights, with a stopover in Istanbul. All the remaining worst-case scenarios are still flooding my mind. What if Django’s papers are wrong? What if they don’t let him on the next flight? What if we are miss our connecting flight and are stuck at one of those scary cold blocky hotels in the suburbs? What if they don’t let Django in?

But also, I’m excited for the reception I’ve always gotten traveling with a dog. The smiles, the widened eyes, the new friends.

Except today, we get none of that.

Some gazes soften. A couple of kids stop pat him. But it’s nothing like last time, or the time before, when people literally stopped him for photos. Have things changed so much in two years, I wonder. Have we all become so cynical and depressed that not even dogs work anymore?

“Please stop everything you’re doing to fawn over me.”

We fly to Istanbul. Things are better here. We get some high-pitched greetings; some new friends squatting down to scratch Django’s ears. Two guys in the customs lineup help me shuffle my bags forward while Django sniffs around for crumbs. They chat with him in Turkish and broken English, and encourage him to not growl at children.

They are unsuccessful.

“Because children are small, hairless and untrustworthy.”

Before I first brought Django to Turkey three years ago, I checked the Istanbul airport website to locate the “dog relieving area”. We landed here, after a 9+ hour flight and 3 more hours indoors, and I asked a security guard where I might find such a place. He waved his hand in the kind of Turkish way I’ve come to know well, meaning, as I have now understand, that either there was no dog relieving area, or it was closed, or he didn’t know where it was, or he had no idea what the hell I was talking about.

Then he gestured that Django was welcome to pee against one of the concrete columns.

That day, I was stunned. Today, I know. This is Turkey: the country where breaking rules is a national sport.

That day, Django, who will not pee in his own backyard, ignored the security guard’s invitation and held his bladder for the entire 16 hour journey.

Today, after three years here, he has changed his tune. But there are people everywhere.

“No peeing!” I keep hissing out of the side of my mouth, pulling him away from corners and potted plants. “Stoppit! Don’t!”

We trot up and down past the crowded departures gates, searching for a non-populated area where my dog can “accidentally” have a wee. Finally, I spot a ramp that the motorized airport buggies are going up and down. My heart thumping, we sneak down it quickly, passing several people in uniform. No gives us a second glance. I pretend to be distracted by my phone while Django pees gratefully at the bottom of the ramp. Then we race back upstairs and order an overpriced brownie to celebrate.

It is in this moment that I learn that Donald Trump has been elected the president of the United States.

As I’m taking in this news, a woman sidles over and asks if she can pat Django. But she translates it directly from Turkish, so what she actually asks is, “Can I love him?”

I’ve heard this many times, but it never fails to melt my heart.

I tell her she can. Twin pigtailed girls wearing pink tracksuits and trainers with flashing lights in the soles ask if they, too, can love him. (Django, thankfully, keeps his thoughts on children to himself.) I notice their mum is speaking Arabic, and I give her an extra wide smile, wishing I could say something. Not knowing what that something could be.

On the monitors showing departures gates, the only flight to Tehran has been cancelled.

We board our second flight. It leaves on time. I silently remind myself of how many things I worried would go wrong, and how none of them actually have.

Then, as we’re about to touch down in Bordeaux, the plane jolts back up into the sky.

The pilot explains that there is too much fog to land. We land in Toulouse instead. We wait for an hour in the plane. They don’t serve complimentary wine, which I feel is an oversight.

The man sitting next to me calls one person after another, telling them, on repeat, the exact same story how we almost landed and then took off again. Django waits in bag under the seat in front of me. I constantly lean down at an awkward angle to reassure him that I’m here.

Finally, we fly to Bordeaux.

No one asks to see Django’s papers.

Outside, I try to figure out how to get to the train station and Django pees on everything in sight. An older man sees me struggling with my card at the ticket machine and offers to buy my ticket. I thank him and we chat for a while. I notice that he has an Arabic accent.

On the tram into the city, a French man starts talking to us. Happy to practice my French, I answer his questions. He guesses Django’s age correctly, guesses mine at 4 years older than I am, eats an entire block of Camembert, and then tells me to go fuck myself. Then he starts screaming at things that I can’t see. I sit, frozen, holding Django who is trembling like a leaf, not sure if I should move somewhere else on the tram car and risk upsetting the man further, or stay here and hope that he goes away.

A bike courier boards the tram. I catch his eye and he gives me an “I’ve got your back” nod. After the shouting man leaves, the courier makes a phone call. Also in Arabic.

We arrive in Bordeaux. It’s dark, and the streets are weirdly empty, except for a group of white guys in hoodies. I head towards where Google maps says is the train station, wheeling my giant suitcase, Django weaving to and fro, sniffing madly at corners and posts. Google maps changes its mind: the train station is now on a different street. No, it’s behind us. No, we have to go down a very dark side alley to get to it. Google purposefully fucking with me feels so French, and Django is still peeing and sniffing like no one’s business, and I’m getting increasingly snappy with him, myself, and this whole situation.

We find the train station.

It is up a giant set of stairs.

I almost burst into tears.

I heave the suitcase, backpack, dog bag, carry-on and dog up the stairs. We emerge onto one side of a train platform. I call across the tracks to a lady on the other side, asking if she might know where I would find my train. She tells me, apologetically, that it is on the side on which she standing. You can buy your ticket on the street level, she adds.

I spot an elevator and nearly collapse with relief.

On street level, the ticket machine informs me helpfully that “this machine is out of order.”

A man in a Barbour jacket is hovering behind me. Scraping together the remaining reserves of my politeness, I ask him, in French, if he knows if there might another ticket machine to buy a ticket to my destination. He answers, in English, that he is headed that way, because he lives in that area with his wife.

He shows me the app where I can buy a ticket.

We find the elevator to the other side of the platform.

He sits on the train with Django and me and all my bags in a soft, plush, u-shaped seat the train, answering all my questions. Django shakes for another hour. The man gets off a couple of stops before we do.

It’s 11pm (1am for me) by the time we arrive at our stop. It’s so foggy I can barely see, but in the light of the street lamps, I catch flashes of beautiful buildings and cobblestone streets. I try to find an Uber. There are no Ubers. There are no taxis, either.

I pile everything except Django on top of my suitcase and wheel it in the direction Google says we should going. Django sniffs around with renewed vigour (I always suspected he was French in a past life). Google changes its mind once more.

But we get here: a conscious co-living space where we will spend the next 6 weeks, living in community.*

Something I have wanted to do, and been scared to do, for so, so long.

I have spent the last weeks so anxious (okay, terrified) about this journey, and the destination. About traveling with Django to a new country, and about living in a house with a bunch of strangers. I have wondered so many times if I was making a huge mistake. Fethiye felt so safe. So easy.

But now, after being here for only two and a half weeks, I have met people I have come to care for in a way that is out of proportion to the time I’ve known them. We’ve cooked together, laughed together, sang together, done sharing circles, worked next to each other, and I have learned so much about the world, and about myself.

And I wonder: maybe, to go to places we really want to go, the leaving and the getting there have to be challenging. Maybe there has to be the equivalent of huge staircases, too much baggage, shouting men. If we need to go through darkness, lostness, and fear to get to the other side.

And if also there are always hidden elevators, and kind strangers who have our backs and help us find our way. (Some of whom just happen to be Arabs. Just saying.)

And people who will greet us on the other end with open arms, even if we don’t know each other yet.

People who want to love us.

Or, at least, love our dogs.