Thursday, 17 October

HOMEWARD BOUND

A Time for Reflection

We checked out of our hotel, appalled when a couple came to the desk and asked the French attendant, "Do the cab drivers take American Dollars?!?"[134] What did they think this was, EuroDisney? Grab a clue, lady! We took the Metro to the nearest RER station, and caught the `Eric' train to what we thought was the airport. We had just settled in when the train halted one stop later, and unbenounced to us, we had just missed the connecting train upstairs. We caught one 13 minutes later and rode the train some 20 minutes to the airport. We didn't buy anything more that the standard metro ticket, so we were hoping that our Europass would be valid for the train if anybody checked[135]. Nobody ever checked for a ticket, but when we got off the train, subway turnstiles awaited us! When our metro ticket didn't work, we freaked....until, that is, we noticed that everybody else was just leaping over them. So we did as the Romans, er, uh, the French did, and though I swore I saw a policeman watch us all do it, we got away with it.

We went to check into our plane, but when we saw that the check-in/baggage line was three miles, er, uh, kilometers long, we said "forget it" and went on to our gate. Here it was 8:30 or so and we were already at the gate. The USAir booth would not open until 10 am, so we went back to an information counter, where the good news was that a nice woman with matching glasses and earrings could at least give us seat assignments. The bad news was that the entire French traveler's union was going to go on strike that day, and though we were booked on an American-run flight, without air traffic controllers... Even the (drunk) Norwegian guy next to us had a ticket for a canceled plane. Boy, now we really had to worry--what if we were stuck here?!?

Well, even if we weren't stuck in Paris for another day, we were stuck in the airport for three more hours. So we ate a mini-breakfast of cocoa, coffee, and a chocolate croissant and a chocolate muffin...for $10? Man, food was expensive here. But that was okay, since we had to waste our last Francs anyway. Doug waited at the gate with the luggage while I spent the last $10 on chocolate, a French newspaper, a postcard and stamp, and two sketch prints of Paris which now hang on our wall. It was also here that I pretended to be French, just so that I was not associated with the dumb Americans! A man bought a candy bar at the newsstand and almost paid 400F for it ($80 instead of 80¢!) One lady in the duty-free liquor store[136] claimed she had absolutely no idea how much in dollars the price of a bottle of Grand Marnier was. Learn the exchange rate, people! Funny, because now that we had become honorary European locals, typical tourists stood out to me like sore thumbs. But people such as this embarrassed me because, no matter how `fresh off the plane' we were, these were questions and attitudes we would have never had.

When I came back to the gate, Doug was waiting with a full bladder, so I switched places with him and watched the luggage while he went back through security to the WC. He did not return for a frighteningly long time...when he finally did, he exclaimed that they were really cracking down on security and put him through a long line before he could get back. Good thing he was carrying the tickets...I hadn't been when I went! We lucked out. By then it was also time to check in at the gate, and we were put through a game of 20 questions in regards to the carry-ons we had. We were also put through a scrutinizing hand-check of our bags, but that was probably because our two metal shot glasses looked a little like the barrel of a shotgun in the X-ray machine. I guess in lieu of the '96 TWA disaster a few months before, this was not surprising. But it still was a pain in the rear.

We really did take off, possibly because the strike was scheduled for noon and we had a noon flight, and possibly because it was in the cards[137] for us to get home. The flight itself was surprisingly quick--we of course did not want to watch the sad Ace Ventura movie, but after our lunch (where we ordered a second entree each!) they showed Multiplicity, which was entertaining enough. The only problem with such a fast flight was that we touched down in Philadelphia, and had 3 hours and 20 minutes to kill before our next flight! Man, that was almost the amount of the flight itself! So we nibbled some frozen yogurt, using American money again, and sat on the floor of the airport and played an entire 6-hand round of progressive rummy as a couple of Japanese men looked on. Great way to kill time.

Our Philadelphia flight was far less painful that the one coming over, even though it was equally as strange. They showed Multiplicity...again[138]! There was a kid behind my chair who kept kicking it and said weird stuff like "They'll have their day...their dog!". An Asian (we think French) woman kept staring at Doug and me, handing Doug all the crap she didn't want...salt and pepper, her roll, a pillow...why was she giving them to him? And at one point the stewardess started screaming at one of the passengers, yelling something like "No, you aren't going to do that anymore!!"--we still wonder to this day what the guy could have possibly done for her to holler at him like that. Man, we thought culture shock wasn't possible in your own country!

We must say that it was a wonderful sight to touch down in San Francisco, knowing that we would no longer have to live out of a suitcase, to wear the same dirty clothes everyday, to worry about whether or not we could afford to pay for something or how we could ask for it...English was absolute music to our ears. But I also must say that I felt a real loss being back in our country, because we both knew that there were some things we could never get except in Europe: certain foods, of course, a far more extensive history of art and culture, but also a far more intriguing living culture.

Yes, it was definitely all worth it!

How do I sum up my impressions of everything that happened? How can I come up with one great sentence to wrap up this journal that can possibly reflect how much this vacation changed me as a person, and as RS says quite accurately, "pushed back my hometown blinders"?!? I cannot go back to that naiveté, nor would I want to. I suppose the only way I can express it to you is if you experience it for yourself. Then I wouldn't need to describe it, because you'd understand already.

If you haven't gone, GO! What you bring back with you is a lot more than Austrian glass monogrammed beer steins and aperitif glasses, German shot glasses, T-shirts from Switzerland & Germany, Venetian glass, Florentine David posters, French chocolate and wine, instructional music CDs in German, Provençe;al herbs, French Bibles and playing cards, German comic books, Berlioz memoirs and scarves, various museum and church brochures, country patches, sketches and prints, dirty clothes, and a heck of a lot of pictures...; you bring back enlightenment, illumination, insight, comprehension, and a changed self who never looks at the world the same again.