What to do during a four hour layover

Picture this: you’re running on three hours of sleep post midterms and extremely anxious for Spring Break, with visions of the beach and your dog dancing through your head -the only thing standing in your way is one teeny tiny FOUR HOUR layover. You can imagine the frustration I’m feeling at the moment. So close to getting home, yet so (14,400 seconds, to be exact) far.

Since I’m probably not the only person who has ever been in this situation, I decided to do the world a favor and give it what it wants. How to occupy yourself while in an airport for an obscene amount of time.

My view for the next four hours

A watched pot never boils, or whatever they say, so the best way to make Spring Break come faster is to stay busy enough to forget about counting down the seconds until your plane is in the gate.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to partake in the long lost, extremely underrated art of people watching. It seems like the strangest people and the cutest babies consistently are in the airport. There is currently an adorable toddle waddling around talking about airplanes with a pacifying in his mouth.

If done correctly, this activity can be done for hours.

“Look, Daddy! An airplane!”-this adorable child

If you want to stir up a little emotion (anger, specifically) go attempt to buy some food. A related fun game to play is ‘try to find a bottle of water for less that $5 and your first born child.’ I did not succeed- not even close.

Adults are advised to get at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, so why not knock that out while you have a few hours to kill? The escalator could be a fun elliptical alternative. Also there is absolutely nothing that could go wrong from running backwards on the automatic sidewalk.

Yet another too cute for words baby

Another option is to channel your best Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York and try striking up a conversation with a stranger. You never know what you’ll learn. Also, old folks are extremely inclined to talk about their grandchildren, an urge I guess automatically takes over when your kids have kids. They’re also very eager to set you up with their grandkids if they think you are in the plus or minus ten year range.

Thanks, but no thanks, I think your 28 year old grandson who will hopefully get out of his parents’ house one day is a little bit old for me.

Taking a nap is never a bad idea either, except when you snore occasionally. If so, waking up in a room full of strangers looking at you somewhat pityingly can get slightly awkward. Ask me about the time I fell asleep on the middle aged man’s shoulder on a flight, it’s a fun story.

When all else fails, you can always scroll mindlessly through the Internet and various social media or listen to that album always wanted to (or didn’t) during the semester.

Before you know it, you’ll be on the flight home and that much closer to a full week of sun filled fun– minus those who live outside the southern region of the United States, sorry guys.

Layovers can be a beach, but life is what you make of it.