Plane Flights and Culture Shock

We left our house on Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 on the dot. Our flight didn’t leave until 9:00pm, but we had to be at the airport 2 hours ahead of time; and we had to account for traffic… and we are just basically a ridiculously prompt family, so we left really early.

Anyway, our car was loaded with luggage. The ride down to the airport was… less than comfortable- but we had a great time talking about whatever happened to come to mind!

We ended up getting to the airport at 6:00pm.

…. 3 hours early.

I was really excited about that.

After getting our check-bags tagged and taken to… wherever it is that they take the bags… we stood around, momentarily trying to avoid saying goodbye-for-six-weeks to my parents.

There was a little family to the side of us. The little girl was clinging to her daddy’s neck. She was crying. It was a soft, almost unnoticeable sort of cry. She wasn’t making a scene, just… crying… It was a little heartbreaking to watch.

I turned around to my own dad...

I really didn’t want to say goodbye…

After we’d all exchanged hugs and kisses, we stood in a circle, held hands, and prayed; asking God to protect us all during the next couple of months. When we finished, we looked up- there was a security guard trying to take a picture of us. He warmed my heart for some reason…

My aunt, little brother, sister and I walked toward the security check. Mama and Dad still stood in the spot we had left them. As we waited, I occasionally looked back over at them and smiled. I wasn’t sure how often I could look back to let them know that I was still aware of their existence before it would be weird.

There weren’t many people waiting, so we moved up to the security check really quickly. I’d heard a good bit about the security checks, and I was prepared for a horrible experience! Um… to be honest… security checks are totally overrated. It was just not that bad. At all. It took 5 minutes….

Anyway, we finished being checked for bombs and drugs and too much toothpaste, and we moved on with our journey. We took a minute before going to our gate to wave one last time to Mama and Dad. They were still standing faithfully where we had left them. Dad had his hand on Mama’s shoulder. I knew Mama’s eyes had tears in them. Mine had tears in them too… oh; it was just so heart wrenching… and ridiculously dramatic... I knew I’d see them in just a little bit! What’s two months in the greater scheme of life? It really is not that long… But watching them there, knowing I was about to leave them… It made me ache a little bit…

We turned, and went on to find our gate.

Our plane was an hour late. (Again, I was really excited about that little fact…) We had a really great time waiting though. My aunt had bought two decks of cards, and we sat on the floor playing various games for two hours. We were laughing, talking, and occasionally yelling, “OH YEAH!!!” when we won. We were really loud.

There were several people just starring at us, (for obvious reasons…) And there was actually one lady, (who was dressed entirely in pink. It was so funny! Pink pants. Pink shirt. Pink scarf. Oh, and she had a British accent! It was so much fun to just listen to her talk!) For an entire hour, she was just staring at us. It was getting to the point where it was almost awkward; until she just finally came over to us and asked us what game we were playing. We explained the game, and then we talked about where she was from, how long she was going to be overseas, where we were from, how long we were going to be there, etcetera.

Once cards got old, we sat in seats and waited like normal people. I took to simply looking around the room at all the people I’d be around for the next 9 hours.

(Note to those concerned: Being self-absorbed does not mean you have actually been absorbed. The world can still see you. So, if you are talking on the phone while typing on the computer and you have the sudden urge to pick your nose, the people around you can still see your finger making its way up to scratch your brain. Fight the urge. You look rather unclassy and altogether childish.)

Finally it came time to board our flight. The plane was gigantic!! Walking through the first class section was kind of awkward. Like, “Oh hey, I didn’t pay as much as you did for the same flight! In 9 hours it’s not going to matter, and I’m gonna have more money left over… I mean, oh. Let me be jealous of your fluffy seat positioned in a way that you don’t have to be social. With anyone. Ever. Hopefully you don’t even have to breathe the same air as the person next to you! Aren’t you lucky… Oh, sorry, my carryon bag just got caught on your overpriced seat… I’m going to pretend like it’s a totally normal thing to get my stuff snagged on overpriced things. Oh, no, don’t help me, that’s okay, I’ve got this…”

We got to our seats, and after the, “Incase if we’re headed for certain death, this is how you sit to pretend you have some sort of control over the situation” videos, and the friendly call-in from the captain, the plane started its way down the runway.

Plane flights are not my favorite. The liftoffs are really my least favorite part of the whole thing. There’s just something extremely unappealing about feeling myself being lifted off the ground into nothing but… air. It’s just not a secure feeling, and I don’t like it! I’ve also seen way too many plane-crash movies and Youtube videos, so I know where the most dramatic places to explode would be! And most of them are revolved around liftoffs and landings.

Anyway, we didn’t explode, (incase you were wondering) and the rest of the flight was nice. I sat in the middle, between my brother and sister. The lady in front of me wanted to lean her chair back… way far back… it felt like her head was practically in my lap. I just was not feeling friendly enough to want to invite someone’s head into my lap. But evidently she was fine with the idea… The man behind me occasionally kicked my seat, and it was weird, because it wasn’t just the occasional kick… it was the occasional 15-kick-session followed by a time of motionlessness. I sort of wanted to turn around and ask him if he was 3, and if he wasn’t then would he please control his urge to kick something. It’s not fun for those of us trying to sleep or even just… exist.

The cabin was very dark, which was really great! The darkness was really soothing. The last few hours of the flight were strange, because we’d gone through several time zones, so it was really, really bright outside. All of the windows were down, because most everyone was asleep or they were respecting those who were…. At least, everyone except one lady. She really didn’t seem to realize that when she peaked out of her window, the light would shine right into the face of some of the other people in the cabin. I was one of those “other people”. This lady liked to look out of the window a lot. I don’t understand why. I guess she thought the sun would disappear if she didn’t check on it every 30 minutes. But right about the time I would start to fall asleep again, she would open her window flap, and into my face shone the light from the outside world… It was kind of like someone jabbing a flashlight in my face; which was… somuchfun. So, I didn’t sleep very much. But that was okay! I really, really enjoyed being able to just sit and listen to my music… and listening to the British people talk. That was kind of a weird pastime I acquired on the flight…

Because we landed an hour after schedule, we missed our connecting flight. So, after we landed, (my second most favoritest part of flying!), we had to figure out which flight we’d be going on now. We were able to get a flight that left just a few hours after our original one, which gave us time to eat some lunch, and take a little nap in the airport before we left!

The second flight was only a couple of hours long. Since it was not our original flight, we got those seats that no one else really wanted… So, I had a middle seat again, this time between a Czech man and a lady of unknown origin. She did not seem interested in talking to me; her answers to my questions were really vague. But the man was nice! We talked for most of the flight. At one point he offered me a piece of chocolate. He had a bag full of individually wrapped pieces of chocolate, so, taking it as a token of our newfound friendship, I accepted. It was dark chocolate. 86% dark chocolate…. It was the nastiest thing I have ever eaten in my entire life. But I ate the whole thing. I thanked him for it. And then I casually took out a piece of mint gum and chewed it most vigorously until the taste had left my mouth… This man was very interesting though! Or, the little bit that I understood from what he was telling me about his life was interesting. He had very strange eyebrows. They were thin, but long; meaning the hairs themselves were long; they literally curled below his eyes. When I was looking him in the eye, I had to first look through his forest of eyebrow. It was odd. He was very kind to me, and talked. A lot. Which was nice. It made up for the awkward silence I was having with the unsociable one on the other side of me. He seemed like someone’s granddad. I like talking to old men, (I usually like it better when I can understand them), but his friendliness was wonderful! And I started it by introducing myself. I liked him. I do not know how to pronounce his name though, so if you were wondering, I’m sorry. He even spelled it for me, and after not understanding for the 3^rd time, even after the spelling-session, I just finally nodded like I understood. I wonder if he could understand my name… (Yes, I realize that that is sort of a pointless thing to ask, since you would have absolutely no idea…)

Finally, we landed. There were beautiful yellow flowers everywhere! It was beautiful.

After we collected our bags from the baggage claim, we planned our surprise…

One of my cousins was coming with my uncle to pick us up. She had no idea that my siblings and I were there. It’d been SO hard to keep it a secret during the couple of weeks that we knew!

So, the plan was this: My aunt would go out first and hug my cousin, turning my cousin’s back to the area that we’d walk through. Then my brother would sneak behind my cousin, pick her up, and… basically freak her out! 

It worked pretty perfectly! Except that we kind of… forgot about the fact that we just left the luggage in the secure area of the airport… so some security guard started yelling at us… Which honestly just added to the moment!

When we left the airport, my aunt looked at me and said, “And let the culture shock begin!”

And so it did.

Following is a list of the weird things in Europe. Enjoy:

The first weird thing I noticed was honestly, the toilets. Their toilets are very strange. Their shape is awkward. I don’t like it. They look like there is something wrong with them. And the toilet paper is weird too.

Your drinks do not come with free refills. It is so weird! And the drinks aren’t gigantic. I mean, I know Americans tend to overdo it with the drink sizes, (“Yeah… I’d basically like to fill the whale tank from the aquarium full of soda… oh, and a straw…I’d like a straw too…”) But it’s weird to have normal… human-sized drinks….

The outlets are strange as well. They are fat… And ugly… I have a great distaste for them. They look sort of like a regular American outlet that has some sort of medical condition, causing them to be really fat with wide-set eyes. (Because outlets can totally be fat. And they most definitely have eyes…)

The painted arrows on the road are different. They are tall and skinny. I really like them! They’re so adorable!!! They have more personality than the fat, short ones in America.

The colors on the street signs are wrong. Where there is supposed to be yellow, there is red or blue. Red and blue together is an ugly combination, especially when compared to yellow and black. Yellow and black looks dignified. Red and blue looks colorblind.

I’ve found it a little strange that occasionally through the open windows you can hear screaming, drunk locals. I just think it’s unnatural. It should be helped in some way. But it is normal for the local people to be drunk and screaming. Which is just… really special. (My family over here are never drunk and screaming in the streets. I just thought I should make note of that. It’s not my family. It’s… people who drink. Getting drunk. And screaming. I have no idea what they’re screaming at. Evidently they feel passionate about something and wish to share it with the world. I guess they think everyone cares… They are wrong.)

One thing I was so happy about was the fact that they have chips over here. I love chips. (not that I sit around eating them by the bagful or anything. But I just really have a love for the salty goodness of a chip!) Although they have a flavor that was very… odd. “Grilled Bacon”. Bacon does not go with chips. Bacon is a breakfast food; chips are not. Bacon is what you flavor dog food with so the dog feels less lied to when we insist that their food is not nasty. It is not what you put into a chip. They taste weird. I had 3, and then I decided that I was not a dog, so I need not continue eating something that tasted like it.

Oh, Air conditioning is definitely not overrated. I don’t care who you are, what country you’re in, or how you view the conditioning of air, but it is not a delightful experience to be laying in bed and get so hot that even after you throw off all of the sheets, you feel like you’re dying. And as great as it is to have fans that blow around the hot air, I’ve realized that if the creator of air conditioning was near me, I’d probably just hug the guy. Or girl. But I assume it was a man.

Steps. There are steps everywhere! And they aren’t the big, “Fall off of me and plummet to your most certain death” type of stairs that you’d notice. No. They’re ridiculously tiny steps that you don’t see until you cram into them with your foot. Or fall off of them with your entire body… I don’t understand the purpose of all of the stairs! It’s like they just wanted an easy way to separate those who are lacking in the area of grace and poise from those who have an acceptable amount of the two. But as one of those who are lacking in the grace department, it’s rather unfortunate to have so many tests of balance… because I keep failing…

Something that I’ve found I love about this place is the simplicity of transportation. My aunt and uncle don’t own a car, and they don’t need one! They just walk everywhere, or take a train, tram, bus or…. Whatever else is available for those lacking a vehicle. I really enjoy walking though. (I’ve only walked to one place, so this feeling might go away. But I don’t think it will.) Just the idea of walking to different places is wonderful! Life is a beautiful place, and walking to and from locations really seems to allow you to see life in a fuller view! I know there are several bigger cities in America where people do the whole walking everywhere thing, I just hadn’t experienced it until I got here.

And I believe that this is the end of my overly-critical analyzation of my first couple days here! Thank you for reading! And if you made it all the way through, you’re amazing! Please let me know so I can be surprised at your attention span…