Friday, January 11, 2008

American Christmas...part 4 (final) - 36 hours on the road

I finally made it our of the Sates. The day I left the sky was clear, the flights weren't canceled and after being super searched at LA International Airport, LAX, I finally boarded on a Boeing 747-400 over the Atlantic.

A funny thing happened to me on the plane. I sat next to a German teenager (9th grade) and her father. After we started talking for a while, she asked me where I was from, so I told her I was from Romania. At that moment she said a most disturbing thing and I quote..."When I think about Romania, Poland and Russia, I think about criminals."...and I replied..."What a coincidence, when I think about Germany, I immediately think about Hitler and the Nazi ", she smiled and said "No, no, no."

After this lovely trip under the influence of the Second World War, I waited for 8 whole hours in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, which I officially hate. I don't have anything particularly against the staff of the airport, or even against the airport itself, I just got so bored of those yellow signs and the announcements in Dutch, made from 5 to 5 minutes, non-stop, for 8 hours.

And after a short delay due to the fact that the plane had ice on its wings, I finally landed on Henri Coanda in Bucharest. Now think about this for a moment: Reno, snow everywhere, airport runway super clear and dry, Amsterdam, foggy and cold, airport runway super clean and dry, Bucharest, snow, airport runway super full of snow and ice...no comment.

To top it all, after they managed to ruin both my big suit cases up to the point where they are unusable and after I've waited about 20 minutes in the cold for my taxi (the taxi drivers at the airport were so nice that they offered to give me a ride to my dorm building for twice the actual current cab fare), I went home in a taxi driven by the only antisemitic person I now know in Romania.

Welcome to your home country Lumi, the place where you land in snow, cab drivers want to rob you and people publicly announce that they want all the USA destroyed and the Jews along with them (same taxi driver)!

Now I'm struggling to overcome the 10 hour time difference and to finish all my school projects before the deadlines. Overall, the trip to the USA was very eventful and pleasant, when I wasn't sick.


Have a great examination period and a fantastic holiday after!


Best of luck to you all,
Lumi

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that must have been a horrible way back home..:)
but come on lumi..is not so bad..romania has it's good parts...we just have to look a little bit deeper to find them ;))
anyway...althoug beeing away so long i have to admit that i am not at all home sick...
but i miss u all of course so..see u soon :D
good luck and big grades! :-*
Andreea

Sim said...

Welcome back!
now.. stop dreaming about USA and get to work!
:*

Lumi said...

Well, I have to admit that this is in fact my home and although you can actually make your home anywhere you want, the connection you have with your family is not easily neglected, so, until (if that happens), I create /form my own family in another country, this is my real home.

Although I don't like the majority of things here and I would like to stay abroad the most part of my 20's and 30's...the people I love the most in the world are here.

Thanks for the Welcome,Simo :D.