We celebrated Thanksgiving. We were small in number but our feast was great. We were even blessed to have some ham thanks to my mom who lugged a ham here big enough to feed 40 people. We only ate a small portion and will have some more throughout the year.
So much of my life consists in drinking tea. When I first came, I had to add 3 sugar cubes to a small glass just to get it down. I slowly went from 3 to 2, from 2 to 1, and within the past few weeks went from 1 to 0. I’m still not a huge fan and don’t ever just crave a glass of tea but I do like it especially during these cold days. I’m also becoming like the locals around me and realizing that local breakfast is not local breakfast without at least one glass of tea.
This place is changing me, making me more relaxed. My friend and I are taking a vacation to Europe soon. We booked our hotels two weeks before we were to leave. Who am I?!?! This hard core rule follower is also learning the local way of taking rules as suggestions. There is a pretty major road construction site by my house. I’ve been joining the other locals in walking across the site to get to the other side of the road. Recently I was at an airport and the security people flagged my bottle of water after I had made it through the scanner. I asked the worker if I needed to go back through security to dump out the water. He told me I could dump it out in the bathroom before boarding the plane. I did not.
While I was flying from that small airport, I experienced some culture shock. Lots of family members usually come to the airport with whomever is flying out and wait with them until the last minute. Because of this, as I was trying to get in the front door, there were lines of family members trying to pass through the initial security doors. Many of these were old teyzes and amcas (older women and men) standing in the way trying to figure out what to do. More seasoned travelers were cutting in front of them. Two to three would walk through the security scanner without giving the workers time to pat down the ones who beeped. People were pushing and shoving. By the time I made it to the other side to retrieve my things, half of them had fallen on the ground.
I went to check in. On these cheap domestic flights, a person is allowed one checked bag weighing just under 30 pounds. The couple in front of me had a total of 3 bags with a combined weight of about 130 pounds. That’s 70 pounds over what they were allowed. Poor folks. I was able to get checked in while they were still trying to figure out what to do.
I sat waiting in an almost empty gate until they called for boarding. The place filled up fast. I saw people start lining up and I joined in a little later. I noticed that two separate flights were boarding at the same door. It was very confusing and I wonder how often someone ends up on the wrong plane. I'm glad I understand the language and could verify I was in fact on the correct shuttle to the correct plane. Sheesh! What an adventure.
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