Ugly American
Leaving America
I have never traveled before in my life. This one time, my family drove to Colorado form California. Other than that one trip, my travel life has just been road trips that don't last more than a day. I fly to and from college, but have never flown for more than an hour. So, this entire trip was an entirely new adventure for me. The flight from SFO to Philadelphia wasn't that bad. Except the kid next to me had a passion for eating his boogers. Everything else was pretty much business as usual until I left the states.
On my flight to Brussels I had been seated all the way in the back of the plane. Was confusing, due to the plane being relatively empty, but also relaxing. I was able to talk to the flight attendants when they weren't working, so I wasn't completely alone. Also, due to a mixup in the dinner service, I had received far too much free wine. So I had that going for me. Near the end of the flight, I had mentioned how that I was excited to have finished my first transatlantic flight to the flight attendant. She congratulated me, and gave me a free bottle of wine for the road. I was incredibly humbled, full of smiles and excitement when I left the plane. Then I meet customs. It took forever to get through a tiny, cramped line, just to be as awkward as possible. Before getting to security to have them stamp my passport, I kept telling myself in my head "don't act like a terrorist." I have absolutely no idea why I was so concerned with acting normal, but it made for an awkward exchange. She asked if I was traveling alone. I said no. Then yes. She asked why I was traveling. I said school. Then studying abroad. Then to take classes. I got my stamp and I walked through to find baggage carrousels. Because I have had a bag lost before, I was incredibly paranoid about losing another one. I walked around the carrousel numerous times before I convinced myself that it was most likely on the next plane already. I found a line that said transfers, just to realize I had stood in the wrong line. Upon finding my correct line, I also found transfer security.
Awkward
My first thought was "oh just another airport security check." Which it was, only incredibly fast. This was most likely due to the lack of body scanners, but who knows. I walked through the metal detector and the thing beeps. As the guy is giving me a pat down, I notice that I am the only person in the entire airport without any shoes on. I laugh, and ask the guy how American I must look for not having shoes on. He tells me to please not speak. I am allowed to continue, just to meet another guy holding my bag asking if I speak english. Oh great. My mom probably shoved soap bars in my bag again. He explains how there is a liquid still in my bag, and that I need to open it. But because I was nervous, and his english wasn't amazing, I had no idea what he wanted me to do. I tried to explain that I had opened the bag to remove my toiletries, to which he responded with his previous statement, except this time pointing to the closed portion of my bag. At this point I realized I had a bottle of wine in my bag. I explain how it was a gift, they run it again, and I leave without my bottle of wine.
The terminals, at least in this airport, look more like malls than terminals. Huge open courtyards containing food courts and numerous retail clothing stores. Before this point, english was mostly used on signs and announcements with french being used to summarize. Now, english was tossed into a bowl of a handful of other languages that needed to be summarized. Needless to say, I was pretty overwhelmed and lost. And way too excited to be so. I was so happy to be completely out of my comfort zone. It was a new experience for me. After walking around a bit, I found my terminal and sat down. This is when I learned that every single one of my German stereotypes were completely true. A man and two women sat next to me, all dressed in at least a thousand dollars each. They were loud, obnoxious, and happy. The man was dressed in a bright blue ski jacket that was tucked into his jeans, blue-leather pointed shoes, and a pink scarf. I thought he was gay, until he started playing tongue hockey with one of the ladies. They were cool.
They called us to our terminal, to which I realized we were getting on a bus. The bus took us to the planes, and we all got on via stairs. It was a tiny little jet, but much nicer than any plane I've ever been on. They had labels on the back of some chairs saying such things as, "every chair seated behind this is business class." This is when I realized that I had managed to get a chair in business class, which was pretty much first class on this jet. This was most likely because I had traveled through US Airways, or they treat american's differently. I'm not sure. This is when I meet my flight attendant, french asshole, or something like that.
He was wearing a suit, with a scarf, and looked like a fucking bald model. By the way, everyone dressed nice in this airport. American's stood out in a bad way. The guy gets on his intercom and speaks what I'm pretty sure was some sort of french. It sounded like it had a mix of german in it. I now know it was flemish, or dutch. Very beautiful language, or maybe that was just because I was high on being foreign, but when he spoke english it was hilarious. When he spoke, the words all kinda just blended together. I'm sure that is how I sound currently when I try to order my coffee here though.
Anyways, we take off and the guy comes out with this cart and starts giving people drinks. I'm confused because I had read the menu and saw that everything, including water, cost euro. I start to panic. Does he charge me when I get off the plane? Should I just say no thank you? Do I order five drinks and be that guy? He asks the Zimbabwe warlord sitting next to me if he would like some tea or coffee. I follow in his footsteps and ask for some tea. The guy pours me some tea and asks if I would like some lemon with it. I instantly get what he just did. He did not ask anyone in the entire plane if they wanted lemon with their tea. But when he got to me, the obvious american, he asks. I know that I don't like lemon with my tea, but I feel pressured and say yes anyways. Then he gives me a cup of water and a box. The box has some hot pizza thing in it. I'm confused because I don't have any silverware and the thing looks like I need a fork to eat it. I call him over, while trying to be as courteous as possible. I'm failing miserably, so I get louder. He hears me and comes over. I ask for a fork. He leans in like I'm going to tell him some western secret and looks even more confused. I realize that he probably doesn't speak english very well. I say spoon. I say knife. I start to rub my index fingers together like I'm trying to make a fucking fire for some reason. He nods and leaves. At this point, I realize that every fucking person near me is eating the damn thing with their fingers. I instantly feel like that guy. I came into this trip telling my self to not be like that ugly american stereotype that we all know, but I just did it.
The female flight attendant comes around offering newspaper. I wait until she is offering an english paper and take it. The belgian butthole, or whatever, comes out again to offer coffee. Now, since my flight from america, I had been offered coffee after every meal. By this point I have had enough coffee to kill a small child. The amount of gas I had been holding in was unhealthy. I was positive that I would possibly die from internal ruptures of something if I were to accept this coffee. I say yes please, to which he does nothing to. I struggle to piece together what is happening, to realize that I need to get a cup myself. I grab two cups from the tray. Laughing, I try to separate them from one another with one hand. I finally manage to do so and hold the cup out in front of me. He says, "on the tray." For some reason I couldn't figure out what he wanted to do. So like any wise, sensible person would do, I stare at him until he explains more clearly. I place the cup on the tray, he fills it up, and gives me sugar. Once again, he did not give sugar to anyone else. This has happened to me twice now; I am given my coffee with sugar, but no other italians are given sugar. Do I look that american? Maybe I'm just being paranoid and people are just asking for no sugar.
Florence, Kinda
We learn that we can not land in Florence, so we must instead land in Bologna, a city an hour outside of Florence. I start panicing and convince my self I am going to die in Bologna alone. Turns out we just have to find a labeled bus outside the taxi area. As I am getting off the plane, I want to express my gratitude to the french asshole. I tell him "thank you so much" to which he mouths "dirty fucking american." Or at least thats what I think he said. A bus ride later and I am standing at the baggage carousel. It took about an hour for the damn thing to turn on because we were an unexpected flight. I get on the bus outside and try to relax. Finally out of an airport, sitting on a land vehicle, and on my way to meet the program directors. Sadly, I can not relax. By this point, I had been traveling for 26 hours. The amount of gas I had held in was beyond what any human has ever done before. I'm a courteous traveler.
Anyways, this post is beyond what I had wanted to write down and I need to take a nap. I took the bus, which was a very beautiful ride, and arrived in Florence. I took a cab, learned that I could never drive a car in Italy, and settled down in my apartment. Meet my roommates and enjoyed a very delicious pasta dinner. Few notes so far on my first 24 hours here: I had to learn how to use a toilet, my apartment looks like a cave, Italians are very clean, alcohol is very cheap, good food is cheap and not hard to find (literally, places everywhere), and I am completely lost when I step outside my apartment.
Beautiful country, beautiful city, beautiful people, and beautiful culture. I'm beyond excited to explore and experience new things.
Ciao.
