unforseen circumstances

I'm sitting at gate 17 at the newark NJ international airport. at this time yesterday I was, I think, on my Leipzig - Munich connection flight and everything was going smoothly. Figures shit would hit the fan as soon as I land back in America. You never know what's going to happen.

There was "bad weather" in DC so the plane stopped at Newark to refuel and wait for the storms to pass. However, because of some bullshit obnoxious laws, planes can only wait on a tarmac for so long before they have to get to a gate, and apparently pilots can only drive for a limited amount of time per day. So all these things added up somehow and it ended up that I had to spend the night in Jersey. The hotel was, of course, complimentary, and pretty good as it was an airport hotel. I've never slept in a king size bed alone before; it's a little excessive, especially juxtaposed to my last three weeks of hostel beds. I've never had a Bad Airport Experience, but I suppose it has to happen sometime. I was talking to Spencer about this and his BAE made mine feel like a luxury: he was trapped in the Amsterdam airport for 26 hours.

This whole pile of bullshit was made somewhat better by Albert, my 9 hour flight seat buddy. We talked for a few hours over the Atlantic ocean about spiritual stuff until a flight attendant told us we were being "too loud" and my sleepy pills kicked in. He and his mom (a NASA scientist!!!!) adopted me, which was pretty great because she could take along two people with her business class deal…score, better seats and shorter lines! That was the first time I've not been seated next to a boring person who doesn't want to talk.





Okay, so some culture shock is happening. Things that are weird:
- all the money looks the same
- the coins are really thin
- dollars in general
- ordering in English
- so many bare girl legs…or bare girls in general.
- CARS ROADS PARKING LOTS! SO MANY
- a large pitcher of water with ICE just put on our table at dinner last night
- fake joviality
- "how are you"
- overhearing/understanding conversations
- WHY everything is so INEFFICIENT
- and i kind of hate everyone.


Let's compare my German airport breakfast to my American airport breakfast…(the croissant is filled with nutella-esque chocolate; the muffin has some raisins)

However, this coffee is actually not bad…happy surprise.

This New Jersey experience has reinforced my grumpiness about being back in America. I really want to see my family and friends, and I'm pretty sad that a whole day of that was taken away from me. I think I've changed over the last two months. Traveling alone for three weeks out of my element, meeting all these new interesting people (I have a list of them and it takes some scrolling to get through) from all over the world -- I guess it would make sense that all that would grow into some kind of new confidence.