Last Saturday I said goodbye to my friends who I had to wake up, and left my apartment, 25 Via Fra'Angelico, for the very last time. The bus wasn't too full, which was nice because I had a lot of stuff taking up space, and a nice Italian man helped me take my bag off the bus. BUT I couldn't have my last Italian bus experience go smoothly! That would be too weird! As my bus, the ever late 14, pulled up to la stazione di Santa Maria Novella, the blu Sita navetta por il aeroporto pulled out... 15 minutes early! All my careful planning was for taught! So I sat around waiting for the next one, listening to two non native Italian speakers talking in Italian to each other and translating everything they said, just like a creeper. Is that even the favored phrase these days? "Creeper"?
I almost didn't make it out of Italy. That ash cloud that had been constricting my airways (not the continents, but my personal airways, which I keep inside of my throat,) which had reached Florence but wasn't supposed to be a problem that day, was, in fact, a problem. The pilot says, "Unfortunately, there will be a no-fly ban put in place in 20 minutes. So we're taking off in 10." Thank goodness! I made it out!
It was really surreal to fly into Paris CDG. I saw the Eifel Tower, the Arc d'Triomphe, the Sacre Coeur, all the biggies, all the things I'd seen 6 years ago, but I saw them from above. It was really very cool.
My flight home was awesome. I had 1st class luxury. The guy sitting next to me, and about 10 of his buddies, were all from a Coca Cola bottling company and the company sent them to ATL in the prima classe to attend a Coca Cola conference. Talk about a sweet job. I watched The Young Victoria and Precious and I cried during both of them. Unashamedly. Who cares if people see me crying over touching things? Also, the man next to me was asleep lol.
I had a bit of a freak out when I got in the U.S. It was super weird to be there. The man at Customs didn't think I was me. He looked at my passport for a long time, had me take off my glasses, had me turn over another ID, and still had me look at him glassesless for a while. I was wondering if I wouldn't be allowed back in just because I change my hair all the time. Finally he let me pass and I waited for my bag. I looked at the time on my watch (military), the time on my phone (Italian), and the time on my boarding pass and thought I only have 30 minutes! By the time I acquired my bag, I thought there were only ten minutes. I called family and said I doubted I would make it and got in line at Delta. Meanwhile, a baggage man walks up and says, "Is anyone here Jessica?" It was me, and I had dropped my passport! I have it in this little owl cover, but the Customs officer took it out of the cover to look at it. I just shoved it back in, but didn't tuck it back in, and it dropped out in my haste. Then the Delta woman told me I had like 40 minutes. I just felt flustered and dumb.
Now imagine this: You're riding up an escalator and this smell hits you. It's grease and nausea. It just smells like being sick. That's what America smells like. That's what my very first reminder of America was. I was disgusted. I wondered what all the visitors think. We're so used to it, we don't realize. I tell you, it's horrifyingly awful. Then I was shoved into a giant mass of people speaking English and eating fast food. There wasn't Italian anywhere. I'm walking through all these masses and I feel so stressed and bewildered. What is this place? I thought to myself, "I want to go find a bed of Italians and jump in it." I started thinking in Italian. I wouldn't look at anyone, and I pushed through everyone. I went into automatic Italian defense mode. It was five in the morning where I was from and I was tired and surrounded by all these stranieri. It was stressful and awful and I hated it.
We landed 45 minutes late, but I'd been asleep the whole time. I tried to think what it would be like to see my mom but I couldn't. It was now 6AM my time, 12 AM their time, and life was still pretty weird. I was too tired to be happy really. I see Mom... and then I saw Ivan... and then I saw my sisters and their mariti and mia amice. It could have been more joyous if I hadn't been so bewildered and tired. And Delta broke the zipper on my front pocket of my suitcase.
There is so much space here in America. There is so much space between buildings. Holy crap, yards are huge! Buildings are big, and I went to get a toothbrush at like 1 AM! When is the last time I was able to acquire anything useful that late at night? It seems like, never.
That night seems like years ago now. It's something I barely remember.
Marissa, Tom, and I went to Lake Ella the next day and met up with Mom. We decided to get lunch, but everything sounded heavy to me. We ended up getting, dun dun dun, pizza. I wasn't ready to leave Italy yet. But Chinese for dinner! I mostly ate the rice, though the lo mein wasn't as greasy as I thought it would be.
Since then I've just been getting used to being here again. I can watch TV in English. Wow! I've been driving around. I got an iPhone. I still haven't finished that dumb book I've been reading. I've been trying to catch up on sleep, but I'm still jet lagged. I used a dryer for the first time last night! How exciting! How soft clothes are when they haven't been dried outside! And then rained on and then dried again!
I'm in Gainesville helping Stace and Kim move. We went to Moe's for dinner, but I slipped back into my Italian mindset. I told Kim I didn't have any cash, meaning, I don't have any cash, can I borrow some from you so I can buy dinner? But she said, I don't have any cash either! Don't you have a card?
...
Right. In America, I can use cards to buy dinner. Righttttt.
I'm exhausted. I miss my friends back in Italy. I still think of Italy as home, even though I'm not going to be just hopping on a plane and going back. I'm not going back, not for a long time. I'm not okay with that.
Italian is slipping out of my grasp since I'm not using it all the time. Fortunately, Italian and Spanish are pretty close. I texted Kim entirely in Italian the other day, and she knew what I said and replied in English. Tonight I asked Stace something in Italian, and he replied in Spanish. I'll be taking Italian again soon, and talking with friends in Italian. It won't be so bad. Only yesterday I forget the word for rabbit when I saw two on the side of the road. I don't like that it's slipping away. I don't like that at all.
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