Trip Home in January (Part 1: Arrival)

Trip Home 1
Arrival

So someone wrote me the other day to ask me why I never wrote about my trip to the States back in January, and then I realized that I never wrote anything about my trip to the States back in January. That trip which involved about a million phone calls (made almost entirely by my sister) between Austin and Boston and Praia and Povencao and Cha de Igreja; that trip that involved a 20 minute walk, 3 hiaces, 4 taxis, a boat, 2 hotels, 3 airplanes, a 5 hour long line in Praia, and a ride from my sister…each way. Austin, Texas is a very difficult place to get to…from Cha de Igreja at least.

So my plane arrived 5 or 6 hours late in Boston at something like 4AM, and I was initially spared the crazed and teaming masses of travelers returning home from Christmas vacations. The airport was empty, apart from all the Cape Verdians and me. This also spared me the initial culture shock of ads and signs and announcements and Fast Foods and Starbucks and English and moving sidewalks and bars and restaurants…everything was closed and dark and quiet.

I guess the first thing I remember about being back in the States, apart from all the goddam city lights in Boston, was the COLD (and the huge piles of snow everywhere). I wore the warmest thing I had in Cape Verde, which was a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and a windbreaker. No match for mother nature though, as upon leaving the terminal I got kicked in the face with what I can only assume is the biting, shocking cold typical of a January night in New England. (I don’t know how they manage.)

Anyway, I had a lengthy layover before my flight to Austin so I stayed at a Hilton, which brings me to the second thing that I remember about being in the states…Sportscenter. (I had no idea that football was still going on but I arrived just in time to see Wildcard Weekend. Sweet Jeezuz!) Sportscenter…on a huge flat-panel screen in all its eye-popping HD glory at the foot of my impossibly enormous and obscenely voluptuous bed, atop which sat a heaping gaggle of pillows, a picture menu full of delicious looking things I hadn’t dared dream about since last June, and a little placard which told me how to work the wireless hi-speed internet that was being piped into my very room at that very moment. Also, there was carpet. Under my feet. For those of you who get to have carpet under your feet all the time, please, take a minute to sit, remove your shoes and socks, and ENJOY YOUR CARPET. Really, just squash your heels in it and pinch it up in your toes and ski your feet back and forth on it, and remember those of us who only have cracked concrete and cobblestones and dirt and earth beneath our feet, and sand in all our socks. And the bath? Fuhgetabaddid. Forty-Five minutes under a scalding hot shower using the complimentary Lime Verbena Bath and Body Works accoutrements. I thought about shaving. I layed down and took a nap in the bathtub. I smelled like an angel. At some point I got out and dried with big fluffy towels and the last thing I remember before falling asleep was Chris Berman talking about whether anyone could beat the Patriots. Anyway, I guess the main thing I remember about those first few hours back in the States is how comfortable, how pampered we can be.

Next day was back to reality. People Everywhere. Cars. Trucks. Planes. Firetrucks. Buses. Vans. Limos. Hustle and Bustle and Noise. I heard a siren for the first time in 7 months. I got lost in the Boston-Logan Intergalactic Airport and walked through the entire alphabet of terminals before I found JetBlue. I put my number in the handy Jet Blue boarding pass printer and it spit it out but told me to Approach the Counter to check my bags and then The Anxiety began, as there were about 320 other people waiting to Approach the Counter and there was an unpleasant woman that yelled to me “Ya Gone’Ta NooYawk!?! F’ya gon’ta NooYawk stepadda da line!” I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t gon’ta NooYawk” but I was scared to talk, and had difficulty forming English sentences. Surveying my surroundings I was suddenly aware that we as Americans are very fat people who avoid eye contact and talk very loud and spend a lot of money. In line, I became reacquainted with the very American customs of Bitching and Moaning to Strangers, and Beginning Most Sentences with the Letter “I.”

Goddam its cold out there!
Can you believe this friggin line?
Last time I fly Jet Blue I’ll tell ya that right now.
Can you believe they only have 6 counters open?
$20 to pahk the gwadam kah.
I’m suing these bastards if I’m late.
I am too.
I stood in this line once already today!
I was rebooked from yesterday!
I gotta check this one too!
I was in a line twice this long outta Frisco last night.
I should not be in this damn line.”

And so on.

On the plane, “moist lemon towelettes” and a TV in every seat. 16 channels, 3 movies and 50 radio stations. Pretty much a constant thought throughout the trip, and one that started right when I got on the plane, was my internal What the Hell Would a Cape Verdian Think if They Saw This? It was a game that never got old.

…to be continued.