Yesterday I woke up in

New York City is the Capital of the World. I’m pretty darn loyal to Continental so I usually have to fly through Houston, TX anytime I fly somewhere, but for my flight to Boston tonight, I flew through Newark. I know Newark is not New York, but Jersey is practically a suburb on New York, so the following argument still holds.

My flight landed in Newark from Austin and had to taxi for a few minutes. Newark is one of Continental’s hubs, so I expected to see plane after plane painted blue and white. Swiss Air, Air India, Letsjet.net (which doesn’t seem to have a website?), Scandinavian Airlines, a few that I didn’t recognize, and Hooters Air (yes, that Hooters), were all spotted before I saw one Continental Airlines plane. I know that I live in Austin, and I know that Austin is in Texas, but I honestly (and embarassingly) forget how homogenous it is. And no, I’m not lobbying for more international flights from Austin–it’s just that you can get a great snapshot of the diversity of a city’s by checking out it’s airport.

As I strolled through Newark Airport I saw flights for places like Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow, and Madrid. Not exactly the standard fare on the monitors in ABIA. Don’t get me wrong–I love Austin. It just got mucho props from Forbes, getting ranked as the best place in the U.S. for singles, and I have zero regrets about coming down here. It would just be nice to see a flight to Dubai every once in a while.