Readjustment Program


We didn't get much sleep and up at 4:00am we were.  We caught the morning shuttle and made our way to the terminal.  A cold fear was in the air as the attendant checked in our bags, but yes they were both EXACTLY 23kg each *large smile and sigh of relief* the attendant even tried to change our seats to be sitting beside each other.  Going through Marseille was a piece of cake, although once again they thought that my bike tool kit was a grenade and opened my zipper rip-worthy bag in order to check it out, the guy was huffing and puffing by the time he was able to zipper that beast shut again.  We flew Marseille (1.5hr)->Madrid->(8.5hrs)Chicago->(1hr)Fort Wayne.  Madrid is an enormous but wonderful airport, there are even workers waiting for travelers at the terminal when you land just to help you figure out what wing you need to go to.  The Madrid-Chicago flight is a killer, it takes longer going from Europe to the US than the other way round by about 2 hours.  

Chicago was the worst airport experience ever, welcome to America.  I don't know how someone could manage to navigate that airport if they were not led by a native speaker, it's a horrible welcome to Chicago; you see rusted leaking buildings, no one to help you, and it's suffocatingly packed full of irritated tired people.  You are herded like cattle to the slaughter through a hallway of horrible art into a large, hot room with a low ceiling sectioned off with miles of line tape where 20 teenage girls 'direct' you, they were shouting ESTA/EE/EU, monitors were broken and there were about 1,500 people in the room together.  We went through customs twice, the second time they held Jasmine an extra 30mins, we had to pick up and re-check our luggage, catch a train to another terminal, go through security again where for the 3rd time they completely sorted through my carryon, this time thinking I was carrying drugs in my vase, they couldn't zip it up again so they just pushed it toward me, stopped for Jasmine to use the restroom and ran to the gate.  We got there 6mins before departure but the plane was already off, we had to get rescheduled for another plane that would get us to Ft. Wayne at 8:00pm.  There is a time difference of one hour between Chicago and Fort Wayne.  Our families were 10 mins away from airport when we texted them that we had missed the plane.  We got in at 8:45, sorted out our checked luggage, ate Oley's pizza and went home.  

So how was France?  It was amazing obviously; it was well worth the years of saving and time spent working through paperwork in order to get there. Yes, I'm already planning how I'm going to go back The French aren't perfect and their mentality can be irritatingly different from mine but on a whole it's an energetic lifestyle over there, especially socially, I enjoy the culture and history a lot, but most of all the great people I got to meet.  There's always something to do, places to visit, and things to learn; everyday was a learning experience on some level.  It's going to be hard that things will be less challenging here: the language, living on your own,making friends,driving, postal system, etc.  It's funny though after this trip I understand now that I'm not French but I don't feel really American either; and these are the kind of people I seem to enjoy, the ones who are traversing two cultures.  

Things I'm excited to return to:

Exercising
Driving 
Mexican food
Friends 
Better exchange rate ; )
Walking around barefoot
Working on bikes
The BBC/Masterpiece
Macintosh apples, dried cherries, some other types of food...





Comments

  1. UnknownJune 5, 2014 at 5:04 AM

    I know. EXACTLY 23 kg. How insane was that?! And I literally laughed out loud when I read the part about the TSA guy trying to zip the beast shut again. HaHA! I like how you explained you don't feel French and yet you don't feel American. It's like you're caught between both cultures, but in a good way. I've never thought of it that way but I suppose there are many ppl living their lives in that state and that's something that a lot your close friends made in France are dealing with too. I like that.

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