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| Leaving London |
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| Me and Charlie |
As the last gesture of
friendship, Charlie woke up early and joined me in the car as his dad drove me
to the nearest Piccadilly Tube station. I was so grateful for Charlie and his
dad, and his mom yesterday, and all that they had done for me while I was in
London for the last time on this 5-month journey. I said thanks and waved
good-bye, feeling the weight of my bags in my shoulders and arms but feeling
the greater weight of sorrow that I was leaving. I was leaving all this that I
had lived in since January: the thrill of adventure abroad, the fun and the
friendships along the way, and the time of my life in many ways.
I stepped down into the station and flashed my Oyster card. The
green light appeared. I went through. Twenty plus stops and a bunch of pages of
Lord of the Rings’ Two Towers later,
I was at Terminal 3, Heathrow Airport. Bag check-in always comes with the
ominous-and-made-more-ominous-by-the-friendly-façade of the official asking me
why I was here in England, how long, etc. It made me shudder inwardly, but I
was finally cleared, my two bags placed in check-in, and my next stop at
security. This was easier to go through, after the laptop was out of the case,
the belt off, the boots off, and all the rest, but I made it. After an hour,
the gate number flashed on the departures screen and I was off and within the
hour on board the American Airlines flight to Los Angeles, California.
On the plane, the food was just enough. I had to embrace the
disgusting butter to eat all the calories I could of the limited food I was
given and not feel hungry. Both guys next to me spoke English as a second
language and if I wasn’t so confused, I would’ve found it amusing when one of
them pointed to my then unused headphones and said ‘headphones’. I said ‘yes’
and then saw him take it and use it, realizing that he had meant to use them. Oh well, I didn’t mind.
Most of my waking time was spent
finishing the Two Towers and starting
The Return of the King, but I tried much of the time to sleep. Very little I got, and only through the use of an Advil P.M. The seats were stiff.
I landed in LAX, the Los Angeles airport, and customs did not
make it easy for me. I had forgotten to eat an apple, but at the time I
completed the Customs form, I didn’t think to declare it. Well I should’ve, but
luckily the officer let me off, dropping the perfectly good apple into the
trash bin in the process. I walked off, relieved nonetheless.
My second flight was an hour, LA to Sacramento. The cries of
the baby next to me had to compete with Ben Howard playing in my ears. Then
finally I was home.
On the first plane I had woken up at one point and got to
thinking of my whole experience abroad as what I had come for, adventure,
friendship, travel, even academics (UC Berkeley does that to you, wherever you
go), and felt sad to think that it was now a daydream, a long-reaching,
multi-faceted, complex narrative, or memory. In Sacramento airport, I felt
oddly dropped from the sky into a place so familiar, refreshing, but a little
strange too—I converted what I thought a 9-dollar sandwich would be into pounds,
I thought of 20s instead of 60s and 70s in temperature, and I heard the wider
vowel sounds of the American tongue more as one from the outside looking in. I
had been detached long enough that there was a bit of adjustment.
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| Home |
I saw the familiar Subaru car outside the airport, hugged my
mom and dad, rode on the familiar highway, and saw our house in which not a detail
was out of place from how it was before I left. Except for the Mini Cooper in
the garage, my mom’s new car. Once in the house, the laundry room was one of my
first locations, the second being my bedroom where my cat Rex visited within a
half-hour of my arrival. My brother Johnathan said hi when he came home. In an
hour, my family went out to Mexican.
In the next hour, I saw another mini cooper drive up to my
house. I ran to the car as the door opened. Katya was in my arms.
A week with her went by, romantically, refreshingly, humourously,
lovely, wonderfully, and here I am typing the belated entries up on a Sunday
after I came home. I cannot tell you how odd it feels to finish this blog,
after all that has happened, all that I’ve seen, all that I’ve done, all that I’ve
met. So ends the final chapter of my journey, save for the last few words, of a daily blog that
feels like a book.
To my flatmates who have read this so often, to my international
and UEA friends, to my family back home, to Katya, and to everyone else, thank
you for reading and best of luck to all of you and that your journey, whatever
it may be, may be thrilling and fun and always one to remember.
The End…
But as a friend once told
me, the adventure…never ends.
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