Nothing like a good bit of international travel to revive dying patriotism.I managed to get out of Cusco on a riot- and tear gas-free weekend, on an earlier in the day flight than originally planned, and had a riveting 12 hour wait in the Lima airport. After this and 2 hours waiting in the check-in line, Continental airlines offered a $500 travel voucher toward another flight in the future if I was willing to take a different, non-overbooked flight the following evening. If only they had asked me before the 12 hours of waiting around... One plane experienced a medical emergency and stressed out a flight attendant so much, she almost decked a little old lady that was concerned about being late for her connecting flight. When the lady asked if there was a separate line for US citizens in Customs, the flight attendant snapped, 'Ma'am, there is NOT a separate line, you will have to wait just like everyone else, who do you think you are, the United States does NOT discriminate, we are not prejudiced or racist!' As if the old lady had been calling the attendant racist. I thought they were both going to burst into tears. And yes, there was a separate line for US citizens... And not only that, horrors of all horrors, they also had me cut to the front of the line so I wouldn't be late for my own flight. 24 hours of travel and two luscious exit row seats later, I was back in the good ol' USA! Cuts, buts, and chicken butts!
Some things I have noticed since re-entry: everyone is so big!! My first layover was in Houston, and at first I thought it was just a Texas thing, all these strapping men looming over me, but it hit me in Seattle when I thought, 'Hey, these Seattle guys aren't normally *this* tall when I realized I had been living in munchkin-land for 4 months! Also, the toilet paper is bigger, wider, softer - and, if that wasn't miraculous enough, you can throw it right into the toilet!! Yippee for healthy sewer systems!
Now, Starbucks seems like (and always has been, I can admit) a luxury - good god, you could go grocery shopping in Peru for what you pay here for a fancy cup of coffee! The TVs switch channels a lot faster here, the computer keyboards have all their keys, tables aren't precariously leaning to one side, the salad you're eating is probably safe to eat, you can drink water from drinking fountains, and men don't leer at you (as much) on the sidewalks. I am enjoying driving again, and I like the fact that there aren't any Peruvian taxi drivers on the roads. But I do miss my favorite restaurant, Kukuli, with its stressed out but happy grandma who mistook me for a vegetarian one day and decided from there on out what I was getting for lunch each day for my $1.50 US. I miss that I could just walk to most of the stores I needed to get to (I miss Boulder for the same reason, but that is a different blog), I miss the idea that you can get a good tattoo for a lot less money (grandpa: notice I said IDEA), and I certainly miss my kids.
But I don't miss that it is summer down there, and today I took advantage of it still being winter in the Cascades and hit the slopes with grandpa for an absolutely perfect day of skiing! I am now an official substitute for a school district out here, and I think I start tomorrow.
