On my flight to Baltimore the young woman sitting next to me was reading the Economist and The New York Times.
"Would you like me to take the paper?" the flight attendant asked as we began our descent.
"No, I'm still reading it," she replied.
"Poor newspapers," I said. "Everybody wants to get rid of them."
It was that point in the flight when it was safe to talk to seatmates because even if you bored them they knew it wouldn't be for long.
The woman had been visiting family: mother in Coral Gables, sister in Aventura. In her short life she had seen quite a bit, working in Zanzibar and living in Santa Monica. She had returned to Baltimore late last year. I asked her what had brought her back.
"It's a real place," she said.
Unlike Washington, I thought. And definitely South Florida.
