At JFK Airport...

As I write this I’m sitting in the JFK airport in New York, America. I won’t be able to post it until later because I’m not paying for wireless but I thought this would be a good time to reflect on my thoughts. It’s 12:16 in Cairo… I haven’t changed the time on computer back to my time. I don’t want to. Doing those little things will remind me that I’ve left Cairo and I won’t be going back anytime soon. Ever since it hit me Thursday that Cori was leaving and that I too would in turn have to leave I had some hardcore problems sleeping aka I didn’t sleep at all. By the time my flight left at 11 am this morning I had officially hit a 50 hour day. Yeah… that’s a new record for me. So I’m gonna pretend that’s why I was overly emotional. Sasha left about an hour before I did. I helped her get her bags into a cab and said goodbye. After I got back to the apartment it was just me and Rosa and she was asleep. I wandered around the flat for a while fighting back the panic I felt at the prospect of leaving until Katie and Allison came to rescue me. Even though it was 7:30 in the morning and we had stayed out late the night before they got up to see me off. They helped me drag my suitcases downstairs and call a cab. After my luggage was loaded I turned to say goodbye and it literally felt like one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I know that sounds kinda stupid but Sasha and I were talking about it and we realized that, because we knew from the beginning that we only had a semester to form bonds with people, we rushed to create the strongest bonds possible as fast as possible. Needless to say we accomplished that in a way I’ve never experienced before. It’s been a very long time that I’ve felt so comfortable with a group of people that I know whatever happens it’s always okay with them around. And there I was leaving two of the girls I feel closest to in this group of people I feel closest to. The closest of the closest if that makes any sense. I wanted my hugs to last forever. I wanted to hide from the cab. I didn’t want to go. Finally I got into the cab and watched Katie and Allison disappear behind me. I started to cry and made the taxi driver feel really uncomfortable! I didn’t even care. Egypt isn’t perfect. The horn honking can give you a headache, sometimes you just want to punch the next man that welcomes you to their country, and you get tired of seeing black every time you blow your nose. I think I could have easily hated it. But I didn’t for five major reasons: 5. Koshari (you’d be shocked what good food can do) 4. My flat 3. The Nile 2. Anything and everything ancient 1. Allison Kelly, Katie Zimmerman, Sasha Renninger, Brian Stoker, Duncan Anderson, Dan Aaron, and Nick Le Du. Lately I’ve been writing Finalmente ho trovato dove apparentengo. “Finally I have found where I belong.” That’s with these seven people. Sitting here in the airport I keep seeing people who I desperately want to be these seven. They look similar and for a few moments my heart soars because I think its Duncan or Nick or Katie. But it never is. I miss them already and it’s been less then 24 hours since I’ve seen any of them. I never wanted to leave Egypt. I know when I actually get back home and see people who are important to me here I’ll be happy again… at least for a while. I keep thinking of everything I’m excited to do. Drive my car, see my puppy, unpack and give gifts to people, share my stories, eat all the foods I miss, drink a real cup of American coffee. It helps. I’m not really fond of JFK in the first place (unorganized, confusing layout, and mean workers) so I bet that doesn’t help my overall Egypt-as-my-home-sickness. It is nice to blend in again. I had to smile at myself when I went to find a seat in the airport though. There were these two Muslim women waiting wearing their hijabs and I naturally went to sit near them. It just felt… comfortable. Like I blended in with them better then the hundreds of white girls around here. My reverse culture shock is gonna be intense. I think I’ve figured that out. And I still have a really warped sense of money that will take a little bit to get use to. I just want to land in Cleveland and see my parents. I want to tell them about anything and everything. I want to eat Taco Bell. I want to unpack and show them everything I bought (mumkin minus the hookah) and then I want to go see Chanda and Wally and let everything feel natural again. Alhamduallah graduation is this weekend and I can keep myself busy with Preston’s party tomorrow and then Kenny’s Sunday. For the next month I just can’t slow down. Because as soon as I slow down I’ll really start thinking about Cairo and that life I left and I won’t be able to handle it.The real question is do I want to go AUC for grad school without those seven and with the campus out in Heliopolis? That’s a question I need to answer by the end of my Junior year. Ready… set… go!

*Update* Sooo... regardless of what I WANTED to do I wasn't able to leave JFK until Saturday afternoon. My plane was delayed for three hours. Okay. Then when we finally boarded we sat on the plane for three hours waiting to make it out on the runway. Okay. Then we drove around the runway for another hour. Grrr. AND THEN just to make things even worse, the workers hit their 14 hour union worker day limit and the flight was canceled! WHEN WE WERE ON THE FRIKIN RUNWAY! But wait, it gets better. After all that the gates were all full so we had to sit on the runway for another hour waiting for someplace to park. At this point I was panicing hardcore and I just called Chanda and cried and cried. I know it was stupid but I was going off of very little sleep and the plane was starting to feel very claustrophobic. We FINALLY got off the plane and we had to wait in the Customer Service line to get new tickets. In line I met a girl named Kristina who was coming from overseas and was just as tired as I was. We talked about renting a car because we just wanted to get home. We got a 4 PM flight the next day so we headed to a telephone to see if there were rooms in the hotels. Of course there weren't so Kristina called her sister and it turns she has a friend who lives in the city on the weekends and she agreed to house us for the night. So we called a cab and now I can say that I have actually slept in an actual New York City apartment! The girl's name was Stephanie and she was uber nice. As soon as we got into the apartment I collapsed on the floor and slept until noon the next day. Finally the next day we got back to the airport, ate real American bagels for brunchish and drank coffee. Then we got on the airplane with no problems and made it home. There were no other incidents and now I'm really glad I'm home. But I still miss Cairo and I could go back at any time now.

hmmmmmmmm....

Auto Response from dancinangel5476 (5:30:49 PM): don't blink or we might disappear
Wvane1129 (5:30:49 PM): what? you and me back overseas? oh, okay with me... *blink*

we'll send y'all postcards!!!