Chez Moi

I'm back in the USA. I woke at 3:50 am France time (so 9:50 pm East Coast time) to catch a 4:40 am bus from the Aix Bus Station to the airport. My host dad, in his infinite kindness, drove me to the bus station, and my host mom was awake to say goodbye. My host brother had asked that I wake him to say bye to him as well, but he slept right through my gentle shakes at 4 in the morning, and I couldn't bring myself to disturb him further.

I got to the Aix-Marseille Airport at 5:10 am, made it through check-in and security without incident, and said my goodbyes to other CEA students that were leaving at that ungodly hour. However, I was the sole student flying through Amsterdam, so I would see them no more once I boarded at 6:00. I slept for about an hour at most on the plane.

Amsterdam: Arrival: 8:35 am
                   Departure: 10:45 am
New experience: going through gate-specific security. Could get near the gate, but not actually into the waiting area without doing so.

Amsterdam to Newark: I got upgraded to an emergency exit seat, and then when my neighbor appeared not to be coming, I grabbed the window seat. He in fact did make it, but when I got up to relinquish my seat, he refused and kept the aisle. He was a nice enough guy, but he really seemed to resent the airlines, complaining that they would do anything to make a profit. From our small amount of conversation, he seemed to resent capitalism in general. Though he had a point about the emergency exit issue: my immobile armrest would have been an enormous hindrance in removing the door in case of need.

11 am to 1 pm. During those eight hours of flight, Delta showed four movies (because we did not have seat back screens). However, I encountered a few movie-viewing problems: the easiest screen for me to see was projecting upside down, the next easiest had horrible contrast and the lower right hand corner was out of view, and the seeing the third easiest required sitting up rigidly, so would not have been easy at all. At least they gave us free headphones (which was especially nice since I currently don't own any).

So I paid vague attention to The Tourist (it seemed disappointing). When Little Fockers followed, I decided I preferred to listen to my ipod in French, which I then discovered I'd forgotten to charge. I fell asleep for about an hour here as well.
Then came Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which I also paid a small amount of attention to, as well as some to Greenland and Canada passing below, and even more attention to my crossword puzzle book. Finally, a film I wanted to see, Salt, played. However I was truly fatigued from the flight at this point, and was developing a slight headache. So I turned the volume down, which made the characters unintelligible. So I listened to my ipod which kindly died at the very end of the album Vida la Vida, and then dozed for another hour.

My flight landed at 1 pm (supposedly half-an-hour early). I quickly moved through customs. Well, mildly quickly. At passport inspection, I switched lines because mine wasn't moving and the one on the left seemed to be an express lane of types (makes one feel confident about security). Still, they did x-ray all my goodies, although I was fortunate and didn't have to take the time to reveal each declared item to them. So I was out of the airport by 1:30 pm. Alright, quickly.

My Dad was there to pick me up and drive me home. So was the rain. I realize that it killed off any allergies I'll have, at least temporarily (which is nice since my medicine taking schedule is now 6 hours off), but it could have rained a little lighter, been a little less grey. There are definitely worse things though. And usually I like the rain.

Home. Unpacking. Haircut. Lasagna for dinner. Managed to stay awake until 10 pm (watching my much missed NBA basketball, but I could only make it through one half).

Then I woke up this morning. It felt late, and I figured I must have slept at least until 8 am. Wrong! 6:35 am. Well, that's as good a time to blog as any.

I'll be going to renew my driver's license in two hours. Turning 21 in France means I can't legally driver here now.

I have at least two blogs left in me.