Anatomy of an Arrival, Abbreviated Version

I stood in the security line at Logan, having just spent the last few hours saying goodbye to the most important people in my life, saving my favorite for last (Pokey was second to last, for the record). I can do this, it’s so much shorter than my stay in the DR. Only the realization set in that the stay would be so, so much different. A bunch of Italians at the bar next to the security line started cheering. Crap. Italy tied Paraguay. I snapped back into reality. Hopefully the tie won’t ruin my World Cup pool.

I was off to Valencia, a first world city in a first world country. It certainly sounds like an upgrade from Cabarete, but that really all depends on what you’re looking at. In Cabarete I had a group of Americans already set up to be my inner circle, they were the other teachers and staff from the DREAM Project (ahem, now the Mariposa DR Foundation). Someone was there at the airport to greet me (yes, my sister, and Shamus “this is probably the only time you’ll see me wearing a shirt” O’Shea). There were twelve-ish Americans working with me. I didn’t have to get along with all of them for me to still have ready-made friends. This time in Spain was going to be different. I don’t know a soul in Spain. I had no one waiting for me, no preset guidance other than my boss’ “just call me when you get here and we’ll figure something out” e-mail from last week. This should be interesting.

***LOST references. Move on to the next paragraph if you don’t care/won’t know what I’m talking about. So I got on the plane, and a nice older Italian lady had the window seat while I had the aisle seat (in a two person row). She did the sign of the cross as we took off, saving us from any potential bird strikes. About an hour into the flight she started talking to me, explaining her life to me, and giving me advice. Typically this type of thing would annoy the hell out of me, one time on my way back from Shannon I had a guy talk my ear off to the point where I had to pretend to be asleep for an hour to get him to stop. She was from Everett and seemed particularly wise, which was weird. There was also a dog on the plane, and it yapped for a good portion of the flight (it wasn’t a wimpy dog, just a small dog-looking dog, like Pokey, but certainly no Vincent). There was also a pregnant woman, yes a pregnant woman. Not nine months in, but she had a bump going. I was beginning to think I was in "LOST: the Canary Islands" or something. At one point a flight attendant even asked if there was a doctor on board (there was), for a woman who had fainted in the tail of the plane. No one knew what was happening at the time and I thought for sure that we were going to have an emergency landing in Greenland or something. Would that count as visiting Denmark? My LOST fears were confirmed after our landing when I said bye to Maria (that’s the Italian lady from Everett). She stayed in her seat, “I have to wait for someone to come with a wheel chair, I have trouble walking.” I think I was a spoiled sister-on-the-flight away from being Boone. Pretty sure that I’m living some sort of flash sideways right now. Anything that lets me survive Season One, I guess.
***End of LOST references.

In Rome I got off the plane with one of those staircase to the tarmac things. It’s always fun to bring it back to the 1970s. I was expecting a press conference or at least a photo op with some dignitary at the bottom of the stairs. Nothing like taking a bus driven by the guy from “Perfect Strangers” to get to the terminal. It turns out that “When in Rome…” means be a bigger metrosexual than anyone from Jersey Shore. My goodness, it was mind boggling. Tight shirts on skinny people, tight shirts on fat people, “carry alls” everywhere, as that Miller Lite commercial so eloquently put it. It becomes really easy to spot other Americans in Europe. There’s really no way to explain it, you can just tell. Of course I went the New England Patriots throwback logo-wearing t-shirt route just to see foreigners try to read and comprehend what my shirt even said. If there’s one that that’s true, romance language people typically struggle with unfamiliar words that don’t end in vowels. Really all I had to do was wear a t-shirt to give away my nationally though, regardless of what it said. I should’ve worn shorts just to rub it in.

On my flight to Valencia I was right smack in the middle of 5 Russian women. Russian lady, Russian lady, me, aisle, Russian lady, Russian lady, Russian lady. I tried to sleep the whole way. They seem weird. I’ll just leave it at that. Also, poofy frontal bangs went out of style years ago if you’re reading this, twenty-something year-old Russian girl. They kind of reminded me of the guy in Bratislava in Eurotrip saying, “Miami Wice, number one hit new show.” It was 2004. Also, one was distraught at takeoff that she had to turn off her forty-five pound electronic planner that rivaled Zack Morris’ phone in terms of technological dinosaurship.
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Okay, so I wrote all that probably two weeks ago and stopped to make dinner. It turns out I never went back to finishing it, and I don’t really know where I was going with it. I also didn't proofread it, so tough. I do have a bunch of stories, only I didn’t write them down right away so they’re a little foggy/I certainly won't get to everything. Unfortunately the World Cup has taken up any of my free time that otherwise would’ve been devoted to updating this. I’ll try and put together some stories over the course of this week and get to posting. Also, a French kid moved in to my apartment last week (it's a three bedroom and the landlord rents them out separately), he knows almost no Spanish but thankfully his English is manageable (I don't know French). Anyway, I imagine that whole situation will be...interesting.