"Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective." Ernest Hemingway
Well, I have certainly done that. Here we go:
We left Scotland on a Monday. It was a sunny morning, but Whitney didn’t seem to appreciate my upbeat mood.
“It’s a lovely day to die, don’tcha think?”
It was on this journey that my mother realised she had mixed up the day of our return, and would have a wonderfully free day to welcome us home – the day before we actually did. Whoops. We left her to sort out her schedule (as it turned out, she was able to meet us at the airport, but had to go to a hearing late morning).
I found American Airlines oddly… parochial is perhaps the word. I thought it was interesting that it was Monarch, a little charter airline, that AA reminded me of, without the short flights that go with Monarch. It’s the first international airline I have been on, since SAS to Bergen back in the 80s (and they had great kids’ activity packs) who haven’t had seatback monitors, and the seats were just weird. They were designed to recline when you leaned on them more than “usual” – oh, yes, there was some fun with those – then they took a loooong time to revert. What it meant was that when we finally got off the ground, after a delay for luggage redistribution, the inevitable slamming-back-into-the-seat of take-off led to some interesting results. I found myself trying to claw back into a non-upside-down position for a couple of minutes until we levelled off somewhat and we could return to our fears of crashing.
Knowing only one thing for certain about Whitney’s family – that they liked Whitney – I had put together, as my touching gift, two photo albums (one for her parents and one for her grandparents) chronicling Whitney’s year. This was one of my bigger organisational projects of the post-exam week, but I was glad I undertook it, as it was a hit with the family and it kept us occupied on the flight.
(sounds of delight) “Me! ME! It’s all about me!”
One thing I can say for AA: their food was great, at least on the way out. The coleslaw was just perfect, and Whitney thoughtfully gave me hers with the grace that I have come to expect from such a lady.
“Ew, coleslaw… you want mine?”
The rice in the chicken and rice was amazing, and they gave us a mini pizza as we crossed Lake Michigan – which, by the way, was unbelievably huge! I’m sure Whitney got sick of my constant noises of wonder.
“Wow! I mean… it’s the most gigantic thing I have ever seen… how can they have this small sea so far inland? I can’t even see the shore! It’s… it’s mahoosive!”… 45 minutes pass… “It’s so big! I mean…wow!”
We came into Chicago the bumpy way (it is the Windy City, after all), but got a fantastic view of the skyline as we descended.
I hope I didn’t seem skittish at immigration.. just Scottish. I did get fingerprinted, though, which they claim has been happening for three years, but I don’t remember it the twice I was in New York since then… weird. I’m always convinced I’m going to show up on some no-fly list, like that 80-year-old nun who was labelled an extremist after participating in an anti-nuclear protest…
We finally made it out of the airport and into the waiting arms of Whitney’s parents, who remarked upon Whitney’s strangely Scottish sounding accent… To me, too.
“Whitney’s got a bit of a lilt to her voice – picking up the accent?”
“Yeah, it's got worse since she landed.”
Note to those who wish their strange-ities to go without comment… don’t take your flatmate home with you.
We had arrived in America.
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