day1-shockingly pleasant hours at an American airport
The backpack and the shoulder bag are sitting on the living room floor, all packed up, waiting to be picked up and go. I sit at my desk, filling out the final paperwork required for the college applications I have been meaning to finish before I leave. I write a couple of letters to the schools I attended in the past, asking them to send out my records, address and seal the envelopes. I make a cab reservation at one o'clock on their web site. At eleven thirty, I go downstairs with the envelopes and the notes I have written for my father about how to obtain financial documents from his bank, which is also required from the colleges curious of my financial standing. Patrick is expected around noon. I fix some Japanese lunch of rice balls, miss soup, and marinated sashimi-leftover from last night, thinking that I'll miss the kind of food for a while.
Around noon, Patrick's green Honda pulls up into our driveway and he appears from the passenger's door, smiling, for the smashed driver's door refuses to open. He drags out his backpack from the trunk, so compactly packed but heavy as mercury with all the camera lenses and a laptop. We have lunch, have some Japanese tea, and on spotting the cab waiting at the driveway, pick up our backpacks and set out. Mom reads to Patrick an English sentence wishing us a fun trip, which she has prepared and written down beforehand. Waiving hands from behind the tinted window of the cab, we start our journey, which still doesn't feel real after all the last-minute paperwork and chores that kept us from focusing on France for several days. Excitement and disbelief seize me alternatingly as we approach the airport, which a radio report said is dealing with its heaviest-traffic day of the year.
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For Patrick had a load of taxable tech gadgets (and I one) if a custom officer decided to be anal retentive, we paid a visit to the custom office. The first visit to the custom office in my life turned out to be pleasant, thanks to the laissez-faire, almost friendly officer who took care of our paperwork. Patrick even had a brief conversation with him about the PowerBook, after which the officer turned to a confused Middle Eastern guy going back to his country for the new year from the U.S. where he is a graduate student. It seemed to be an exceptionally good start of our journey. We headed toward the United's ticket counter in a separate terminal, where we found ourselves behind a young couple with a baby, totally disabled by an incredible number of huge suitcases which they had to come back and force to push forward every time the line moved. When our turn came, a jaunty middle-aged guy from Philippine greeted us at the counter, with jabs of jokes, and made sure we'll get seats next to each other by writing down "newly-weds" on our tickets, which considerably accelerated the blood flow in my cheeks. Despite our concern, we passed the security check without a long wait or an annoying open-your-bag-please inspection, where a "please" cannot sound more hollow. I even saw a security personnel smile a big, heartfelt smile for the first time in my life when I desperately nodded to his prompt to proceed with my passport and boarding pass held between my lips as I busied my hands taking off the jacket and placing the small metal belongings in the provided tray. The busiest day of the year at an American airport under a perpetual terror alert is never high on my list of places to encounter a friendly treatment with a human face, but it turned out to be so. I hoped it would remain so during the entire trip, but little did I know what excitement was waiting for us in our trip back to the U.S...
We drunk the last big cup of American coffee as we chatted away the unexpectedly long wait for the boarding time (thanks to everything that went so smoothly to our surprise). In the airplane, we stretched our legs in the luxury of the exit seats, delighted ourselves with a surprisingly high-quality meal of chicken in tomato sauce and creamed spinach and tortellini in marinara sauce, ridiculed some the Signally magazine that proudly presents their newest silly gadgets (loser's stuff, as Patrick put it), and slept the rest. Patrick found the live mapping system that shows the whereabout of our airplane quite amusing.
Around noon, Patrick's green Honda pulls up into our driveway and he appears from the passenger's door, smiling, for the smashed driver's door refuses to open. He drags out his backpack from the trunk, so compactly packed but heavy as mercury with all the camera lenses and a laptop. We have lunch, have some Japanese tea, and on spotting the cab waiting at the driveway, pick up our backpacks and set out. Mom reads to Patrick an English sentence wishing us a fun trip, which she has prepared and written down beforehand. Waiving hands from behind the tinted window of the cab, we start our journey, which still doesn't feel real after all the last-minute paperwork and chores that kept us from focusing on France for several days. Excitement and disbelief seize me alternatingly as we approach the airport, which a radio report said is dealing with its heaviest-traffic day of the year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Patrick had a load of taxable tech gadgets (and I one) if a custom officer decided to be anal retentive, we paid a visit to the custom office. The first visit to the custom office in my life turned out to be pleasant, thanks to the laissez-faire, almost friendly officer who took care of our paperwork. Patrick even had a brief conversation with him about the PowerBook, after which the officer turned to a confused Middle Eastern guy going back to his country for the new year from the U.S. where he is a graduate student. It seemed to be an exceptionally good start of our journey. We headed toward the United's ticket counter in a separate terminal, where we found ourselves behind a young couple with a baby, totally disabled by an incredible number of huge suitcases which they had to come back and force to push forward every time the line moved. When our turn came, a jaunty middle-aged guy from Philippine greeted us at the counter, with jabs of jokes, and made sure we'll get seats next to each other by writing down "newly-weds" on our tickets, which considerably accelerated the blood flow in my cheeks. Despite our concern, we passed the security check without a long wait or an annoying open-your-bag-please inspection, where a "please" cannot sound more hollow. I even saw a security personnel smile a big, heartfelt smile for the first time in my life when I desperately nodded to his prompt to proceed with my passport and boarding pass held between my lips as I busied my hands taking off the jacket and placing the small metal belongings in the provided tray. The busiest day of the year at an American airport under a perpetual terror alert is never high on my list of places to encounter a friendly treatment with a human face, but it turned out to be so. I hoped it would remain so during the entire trip, but little did I know what excitement was waiting for us in our trip back to the U.S...
We drunk the last big cup of American coffee as we chatted away the unexpectedly long wait for the boarding time (thanks to everything that went so smoothly to our surprise). In the airplane, we stretched our legs in the luxury of the exit seats, delighted ourselves with a surprisingly high-quality meal of chicken in tomato sauce and creamed spinach and tortellini in marinara sauce, ridiculed some the Signally magazine that proudly presents their newest silly gadgets (loser's stuff, as Patrick put it), and slept the rest. Patrick found the live mapping system that shows the whereabout of our airplane quite amusing.
posted by uBookworm at 11:25
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