The Fetmans Take London, and LISA TAKES AMERICA

Yes! I know! Finally, a new post! I want to thank all of the Lisa devotees for continuing to check up on this, and I want to apologize for the delay. You see, I could give the excuse for my lack of blogging of being too busy, but the truth is, I'm not too busy to write my last few blogs. The real truth is that I'm not ready to end it. I've been avoiding writing the last few posts because I know that soon it will be over. I have to end it. I just don't know how to end it. This blog, as you know, is like a novel, and I feel like it's become my baby. I know how it ends, but I want it to end perfectly when I write it out. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to be done with this--it's been a responsibility hanging over my head for almost 8 months now. But it must come to a close. I'm almost there and almost ready. I promise that it will be done soon. I just have to mentally prepare myself to finish. Once I finish the blog I will be completely done with compiling all of my Spain memories (all of my pictures are printed now). So, without further ado, here is the tale of my journey home...

Sunday, June 25

Woke up to my alarm at around 10ish to go downstairs for the hotel continental breakfast. Woo woooooo. I went with Shana and Daddy (who didn’t eat, just came along for free coffee). Man, that was a weird breakfast because it was the closest I had come to an American breakfast. It had eggs, sausage, cereal, all that stuff. The best part was the roasted tomatoes and fruit salad. It also had some weird black sausage thing that kind of looked like morcilla but wasn’t. I tasted it, and it was strange. Serves me right, because my Spanish meaty diet would soon come to the close. Yeah, well, I had made the decision to not go back to being a vegetarian like before, but still cut out red meat. So turkey and chicken would be a go. So that would be that. The breakfast was nice, we ate slowly. Check-out wasn’t until 2 so I went back upstairs to try to work my computer. Turns out that the outlet that it was plugged into—being that it was intended for razors—didn’t have enough power to charge my computer. Dammit! So I gave in and went down to the reception to ask for a U.K. power adapter. I shared the elevator back up to my room with a really friendly British guy who struck up a quick conversation with me. He asked me if I was from the U.S., and I said yes, and he said, “Yep, I could tell from your accent.” So weird! To me he has the accent. It’s so strange to try to think of an American accent. Nope, can’t really do it. Call me ethno-centric, but I just can’t. So that was funny. I got back to the room and then plugged in my computer, but it turned out that it would cost money to go online…even with a USB cord. Dammit dammit. However would I post my blogs? However would I check my facebook? What a dilemma, I tell ya. So I discussed it with Daddy and we decided to fork over the pounds to buy an hour on the internet. We went down to the WiFi area by the bar and I posted some blogs and whatnot. Felt gooooood. I then went back upstairs while Daddy and Shana took over the internet, and I packed and watched some crappy British TV. The only decent thing on TV was “Big Brother” and it was the same episode that I had watched the night before…except with some censorship. At 1:45 all of us were packed up. We brought our stuff downstairs and waited for the airport shuttle. While waiting I used some coupon Daddy got for a free drink at the bar, so Mom and I both got free Diet Pepsi’s (no more Pepsi Light!) of which we only drank about half since the shuttle came to get us. It was a cool, cloudy English morning…European morning. My last glimpses of Europe. Surreal, I tell ya, surreal.
We got to Heathrow Airport in about 20 min. We unloaded and were greeted by pandemonium. I mean, absolute chaos. We flew Air India and the organization was just awful there. Lines and lines with no order to them, cramped, noisy, by far the messiest airport experience I had ever had. We were stuck in this pre-check-in line for a little over an hour which started to get us worried about not making our flight. The only redeeming thing about waiting so long was the cultural experience: everyone, except my family and a few others, was Indian. Everyone was wearing their saris and bindis and it was amazing. So colorful and vibrant…it was all so aesthetically pleasing. It’s the closest to immersion I have achieved in terms of Indian culture, and I’ve always been very intrigued by Indian culture. So that was pretty nifty. Anyways, in the knick of time we got to check-in which also took some time because they were scrutinizing our passports for some reason. Weird. Then we were in. The Heathrow Airport is nothing special and I honestly don’t remember it too well. We had to move fast since our flight would be boarding quite soon. Luckily the security line, although long, was moving fairly swiftly. This was the most diverse gathering of people that I have ever seen. You see, Heathrow is one of the most traveled airports—it’s basically an international crossroads. So there was such an eclectic variety of cultures and such. The most intriguing was an orthodox Jewish family behind us in full-out Jew garb. Craziness. We got through security, walked awhile to our gate, and once there our plane was boarding. I planned on buying a magazine and a copy of Harry Potter 3, but we had to get on the plane right away. Oh well. Guess I wouldn’t really get a peaceful last few moments with Europe. Meh. So it was a huuuuge double-decker plane. Unfortunately we were on the first level. Damn. We sat all the way in the back. Daddy and Mom sat one row in front of us. And, of course, like my flight to Europe back in January, I was stuck in the middle section. The upside was that the flight wasn’t completely full, so some old man who was supposed to sit next to us moved (I guess he don’t like Americans? Or teenagers? Or 20-somethings? Whatever, more room for us). Also, the dude sitting to my left was so nice and so friendly. The airplane magazine was really interesting and had a lot of interesting articles on world cultures and travel, but particularly Indian culture and travel. There were so many cool pictures and the nice guy next to us told me about all of the traditions and festivals depicted in the photos and articles. So nice! I learned so much about Indian culture from the magazine and him. There was a great article about David Beckham and how he’s the most famous person in the world, and one about traveling around Spain (there was a photo of people in Sevilla watching a football match). Coolness. The downsides: they wouldn’t let me keep my laptop/carry-on under my seat, so I had to put it above. I felt uncomfortable putting my laptop in the overhead compartments so I had to take it out of the case and carefully place it under the seat in front of me. That sucked. The other thing that sucked: the back area of the plane just happened to have a broken movie screen. SOOOO we couldn’t watch the movies they’d play during the 8-hour flight, but would be able to hear the sound. How pleasant. Our flight left pretty much on time (4pm-ish). It was an easy flight all-in-all. I read my US Weekly cover-to-cover, learned a good amount about pop culture, listened to my iPod. Yep. The best part, I must say, about the flight was the meal. Best airplane food ever. Ya know why? It was Indian food. I love Indian food! We got menus at first and the guy sitting next to us explained what the names of the foods meant, because I guess that they were common Indian dishes that we just did not recognize at all. I got some chicken curry thing, Shana got the same thing but with tofu. It was so good! It was tomato-ey with a basmati rice and some veggies and spices…well, a lot of spices. Lots of curry. It was so spicy I had to keep putting yogurt in it. Although the dish was awesome I just couldn’t finish it because the spice just got too intense. Nevertheless, I still stand by my statement: best airplane meal EVER. For dessert it came with rice pudding with some jasmine which was sooooo good! Wow, what a treat that meal was. Thanks, Air India! Ya know, I swear, my flights to and from Europe have been so random. For example, I was the only person on my program to fly Air Swiss to Europe. I mean, Switzerland was my first stop and it’s completely out of the way. People got a kick out of my random rendezvous in Zurich. And while most of my friends took Air France, Iberia, or British Airways home, here I was on Air India. Gotta love my frugal father and his airline choices. Both Air Swiss and Air India turned out to be very pleasant flying experiences. So props to them. After eating I read some more and then napped for a couple of hours (a.k.a. rested my eyes and listened to my iPod). Surprisingly, the flight went much faster than expected. Perhaps it’s because by then I was used to long trips. Before I knew it the captain was announcing that we were flying over the States and ready to make our descent into Chicago. I suddenly started freaking out. My heart began to pound and I was trembling. I had major butterflies. It had suddenly hit me: I was in America. I had talked about America for so long like it was this far away land from my past. And here I was, about to land on American soil. It had been since January. Six whole months. One half of a year. The feeling I had during that last half hour in the air is inexplicable. I think Shana kept getting annoyed with me because I kept saying, “What the fuck??” to myself. I was literally confused and didn’t know what to feel. I felt like laughing and crying; I was excited and pained. I just…didn’t…know.
At 7pm Central Standard Time our wheels touched the runway. There I was. In America. I was floored. Speechless. I did the whole deer in a headlights thing…and I was still in the plane! I just, couldn’t believe it. Again, inexplicable. We de-planed. To walk through O’Hare Airport was very surreal. The signs looked different. The people looked different. The people walked differently. I felt like an alien. I walked through the airport wide-eyed like I was Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future II. We got to baggage claim which was crowded. We waited a good while for our bags. They all made it in one piece. My memory is very simple at that point. I just kept saying to myself, and thinking, “What the fuck? What the fuck is going on?? Am I really here???” It was unreal. Once our bags were collected we walked toward the exit to be surprised by Hillary, Shana’s girlfriend. They all hugged for awhile. I was just too caught up in the American experience to get present to seeing people…American people. Ahhh. We walked outside. The air felt so different! So much more dense, so much more…damp? I don’t know how to describe it, but America definitely has completely different air than Europe. What first shocked me, oddly enough, were the license plates. They’re so small! And…square. I couldn’t believe it. The “What the fuck?”’s started again. It’s very convenient that in order to get home from O’Hare one must drive through the city of Chicago. It was a heaping dose of Americana for the 30-minute drive. Also, my dad was driving. How weird, my dad driving! America is so weird. We passed all of these churches and cathedrals that in the past I perceived as gorgeous, and, above all, old. After what I’d seen in Europe the churches, buildings, architecture was all so…bane. Also, America is so modern, it’s weird. I always thought that these buildings built in the 19th century were ancient. To me that’s modern. However, let me digress and say that since Spain I have come to appreciate America and its modernity. For example, I’d become angered upon seeing these monstrous modern buildings and houses being erected, but now I see it as beautiful because it fits here. That’s the American style because we just don’t have the antiquities of Europe. So I like the modern American style now. It’s unique. Europe can be old all it wants, but we got our new stuff that we can call our own. Cool. Aaaaaanyways, this was all going through my head during that surreal car ride home.
We soon pulled into good ole 725 Washington Ct. I couldn’t believe I was home. I was overwhelmed by being back home, and add to that my gradual mounting stress with unpacking (oy), I just didn’t know what to do. My plan was to unpack ASAP so as to start the reverse culture shock as soon as possible. Entering the house was, well, anti-climactic. I mean, everything back home was just like how I’d left it…and it was weird how it all just felt so normal and routine. That shocked me—that it didn’t shock me. Ya know? It was so hard for me to transition to Spanish life, but with a snap of the fingers I was back to my old ways. I remembered our garage code, where we kept everything in the house, etc. I was extremely excited to see my dogs, but they were not as excited. They hadn’t seen the rest of my family in awhile and they were more excited to see them. I guess that they had kind of forgotten that I was gone for as long as I was, and they were just as happy to see me as the rest of the family. When we walked in Hillary had decked out the house in USA balloons and streamers which was silly and cute, but made me feel kind of awkward. I’d rather ease into it, not have it thrown back at me and shoved down my throat. But whatever. It’s a kind gesture. We unloaded the car. I brought my big suitcases upstairs. Everything was the same! Wow. I got ready to enter my room. This would be a big deal. I switched on the light and…NICOLE????
That’s right, Nicole was there! She surprised me! Omigod. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never been more surprised in my life (and that’s not an exaggeration). I was so surprised I started crying…and Nicole started crying…and I couldn’t stop hugging her. I had missed her so much! I couldn’t believe she was here! That bitch! I love her! She had been planning forever to take the train in that morning to surprise me…and my family had known about it all along! OMIGOD!!! Reflecting on it right now even causes me to get all choked up. It was an incredible moment. I soon returned to my confused state. “What are you doing here????” I kept asking her. I mean, I was just so overwhelmed with being back, having to unpack, and then, my best friend from Michigan, right there, in my room…in Chicago! Whaaaaaat??!! I didn’t know what to do with myself. Ask Nicole, I mean, I kept saying “Ahh, I don’t know what to do with myself!” Haha. I was a wreck. Not to mention still stuck in Spain’s time zone. Oh well, it wasn’t effecting me too badly. So, completely breathless and blown away I went downstairs with Nicole where we all sat around the kitchen table and at a veggie pizza from Homemade Pizza Co. which was good. Not my first pick for a first meal back in America (being that it’s served in Europe just as much), but it was quite good. Due to the sudden euphoria, and the fact that I wanted to spend time with Nicole (she’d be leaving in a day and a half) I was not motivated to go to bed (although it was 5am in Spain). Soon Evan and Jason came over and since all of my emotions and surprises had run overboard, seeing them felt like back in the day. Which was a good thing—I mean, it didn’t have the big freak-out element to it, it just felt like old times. Like I had been home since May and it was just another night that they were coming over to chill. I think that that reflects our friendship because we’re just so close-knit that you could separate us for years, and we’d come back together and it’d be like old times. It was so good to see them, I missed them so so so so so much! We all visited for a long time visiting, catching up, etc. I was still very overwhelmed by everything so I wasn’t able to really talk as much as I would after such a journey…add onto that the time difference. At around 10 we turned on the TV which was weird for me. American TV…what would it be like now…how would it have changed?? Ironically, “Destinos” was on channel 20, so of course we had to watch it. It just happened to be an episode that took place in Spain! For those who don’t know, “Destinos” is a Spanish educational soap opera video collection that I used to watch in high school Spanish and is aired on channel 20 occasionally. So, my first time watching American TV it was in Spanish. I never realized how slowly and overly-clear they spoke on “Destinos”. I felt like an adult feels when watching “Sesame Street”. How funny. Sevilla, you taught me well.
At around 11ish Evan and Jason left and the rest of us (except the parents) went downstairs and watched High School Musical which I had been dying to read since I had read it in Amanda’s People Magazine back at the program center in April. Hillary just happened to own it, so it was my lucky night. Although I was tired and should have gone to bed, I wanted to force my body back into the American time zone. I remember them telling us before Study Abroad that the best way to adjust to the time change is to force yourself into it. So I stayed up until 2am! Can ya believe it? That means that I was awake for 24 hours! Yeah, I mean, we only got halfway through the movie, but that’s because I was nodding off. So we all called it a night. I went upstairs to my bedroom which, by the way, was a mess. Ugh. I had forgotten that before I went abroad I made a mess of clothes while stressing out about packing (remember that post back in January about how stressed I was while packing?? Wow.). So there were piles of clothes on my floor and also an empty birdcage (while I was gone our birds died so they put the empty cage in my room…wonderful). The pillows were missing from my bed because Hillary had been sleeping with them in Shana’s room while I was gone. That kind of ticked me off. I couldn’t help but get the sense that she served as a surrogate Lisa while I was abroad, and things like that just helped support that. I was home and wanted to re-claim my territory. But that’s a whole other issue.
I washed up and put on my pajamas. Upon opening my closet I was blown away…I forgot how many clothes I have! I didn’t bring that many clothes to Spain, so this was a surprise. I forgot! I own a lot of clothing! Haha. I tucked myself under my covers (my first time sleeping in my own room!!!!), set my alarm for 10am (no way I’m giving into the time change…I’m waking up at a decent hour!), turned on my fan (I miss having my own little fan!), turned on the TV (omigod, American TV (yeah, I watched Mtv)! Watching TV before bed! Ah!), and drifted off to sleep in America. At home. Unbelievable.