Seven Airports Later

            This comes as a welcome break, as my previous semester could be described, in the most optimistic terms I can muster, as chaotic.  It’s best thought of as a TV show rather than an experienced reality, both for the purposes of entertainment and coping.  I’ll be spending the next several months on the other side of the world from where I was, and am now at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco.  My journey started (after coming home from school in Portland) in Colorado, and ended seven airports and three days later.  The plan was to go to New York, to another airport in New York, to Philadephia, to Paris, to another airport in Paris, to Fez, to Ifrane.  Why this was the cheapest way to do things is anyone’s guess.

            I visited friends of mine in New York and New Jersey for a bit to establish a sort of base camp for the journey.  My buddies Lauren and Adam got me from JFK and drove me through grueling traffic just as it was starting to snow.  I got to visit their home town of Closter, see the show House for the first time, and discover a hidden talent for Kinnect Boxing.  Despite several inches of snow the next day, Lauren and I went into the city to meet up with our friends Jeff and Eitan.  It was my choice of what to do, which meant that everyone experienced several hours of the enjoyment that only dinosaur skeletons in the Natural History Museum can bring.  Many of my actions are guided by the intent to look at shiny and colorful things, so we also spent a good deal of time in the gems and minerals section, where we were privileged to view an out of date and mildly racist video on the relationship between humans and gold.  We walked across Central Park to the Met, but didn’t end up going in since we were all so hungry.  I wanted a picture on the Met steps so that I could photoshop myself into a similar one which my friends had taken during the summer.  Lauren pointed out that the original picture had been taken in hundred degree heat with no snow on the ground, and so the fact that I was wearing a coat, gloves, and a scarf might make the blend somewhat noticeable, but I was not swayed from my course.  I ate untold quantities of Italian food, and the next day set out again, this time at La Guardia and with one fewer bags due to weight problems.

            My favorite parts of airplane flights are the very beginning and end, because as you look out the window all of civilization and nature looks like a model of itself.  At night, the streams of white lights coming toward you and red lights going away make the cities look like some kind of giant organism that metabolizes blue and green light.  My flight from New York to Philadelphia remained at about that height for its duration, so my eyes were glued to the window for the whole of it.  I got some decent pictures of New York City from above.

            Once I was in Philadelphia, I searched for the gate of my flight to Paris and the arrival gate of my as yet unknown travel buddy Kim, where I was supposed to meet her.  After about an hour of wandering around the Philadelphia airport, which has all the comfort and design quality of a Sarlacc pit, I realized that I had left the security area and had about ten minutes to get back through it before my flight boarded.  I made it on time, but without making contact with Kim.

            The flight itself was only six hours long, which was two hours shorter than I had calculated and four hours shorter than it felt like.  I spent most of it trying to sleep, my failure at which can be explained by the fact that I wisely packed my travel pillow in my checked bag and was sitting in the middle of the central four columns of seats.  I also had several cups of tea once I realized that it was available whenever I wanted it, which may have been a bad move.  As the lights turned on for breakfast to be served, I realized that I was done processing all my tea.  The bathroom at the front, near where I sat, was in use, so I went to the back.  By the time I got to the front of the line, breakfast was being served.  The cart was at the row past mine when I tried to get back to my seat.  Both aisles were blocked by carts, and long story short I spent an hour of the flight standing up awkwardly in the place at the back of the plane where stewardesses make the coffee.  If this were not real life, I might have befriended the stewardesses, who would in time have accepted me as one of their own, but instead I stood silently and tried not to make eye contact.

            When I got to the customs line, I asked a few people if they were Kim, but none of them were.  The whole customs process took about ten minutes, and despite my rehearsing a veritable life story in French over and over in my mind, exactly zero words were exchanged between myself and the customs officer on duty.  At the baggage claim Kim finally found me, and I don’t think I’ve ever been that happy to see a stranger in my life.  Our troubles were far from over however, since the directions to the inter-airport shuttle which Kim had found online were wrong on all counts.  It took the special powers of both of us, my years of studying French and Kim’s basic sense of direction, to get where we needed to go.  Even so, it was good that we budgeted so much time for it.  I think the people with whom I spoke thought that I was not an American, but rather a very stupid French person, as when I asked for clarification, instead of switching to English, they got annoyed and said things slower in French.  I guess that’s something of a step up.  Things were not helped by the fact that two people gave me incorrect directions, nor by the fact that there are two unconnected departures levels at Charles de Gaule.

            Somehow we made it to Orly, where I was once again a stupid French person until we found the location of our gate.  We took a rest in some comfy chairs, though if we had known what security would be like it may have been a shorter one.  Even budgeting an entire hour for the process, we only just made the flight.  America and Europe both have numerous unusual security requirements, but unfortunately they are not all the same ones.  As such, I had to go through the security gate four times, representing each time someone found an electronic device among my belongings.  I had the joy of being stared down by a large French guard as he tried to determine my gender to send me to a pat-down.  He wanted me to give him my passport so he could check my gender again, though one of the other guards had instructed me to put it in my bag so I had to go through the gate yet again.  Both of my carry-ons were opened and searched, and Kim was similarly harassed.  When we finally got to the gate we thought we had seen the last of it, but a stewardess told me in French to come with her, doing the same to a number of other passengers.  I didn’t catch why, but by the tone of voice the other passengers were taking I knew it wasn’t good.  Kim and I ended up having to check our second carry-ons, despite their extreme lack of threat as determined by the security personnel.

            The Royal Air Maroc flight had a very exotic feel to it, with pretty curtains dividing areas of the plane and the safety instructions read in Daraja (Moroccan Arabic) and then French before speedy and slurred English.  My body finally lowered its comfort standards to a level where I could fall asleep, and I awoke to a view of red hills and citrus orchards as we approached the airport.  We joined up with Elizabeth, a third exchange student, and as we were filling out customs forms the size of note cards a student ambassador of the university named Selma came and found us.  We got in a small van with some other exchange students, all American, and picked up another at the train station.  Both the station and the airport were surprisingly pretty, with large arched doorways with decorated edges.  The process of driving in Fez reflected little respect for such things as lane lines, seat belts, stop signs, and keeping a few car lengths between you and the car in front of you.  Livestock grazed along the roadsides even in the middle of the city, and people rode donkey carts as well as cars.  The climate was more or less like California in its warmth and humidity, and the red dirt, green vegetation and blue sky made a really beautiful color palette for our ride.  Everyone had horror stories about delayed flights and security looking for bribes to share along the way.  The university was up in the hills quite a ways, where it was much colder and dryer than in Fez.  The guards at the gate let us in.

            Selma got us orientation packets and room keys, and showed us the location of our buildings and the campus restaurant, where dinner was being served until a little later.  I had been in conflict in my mind over whether to shower or nap first, but at the time nap won out.  I got in my bed and fell asleep for the next nine hours.