arrival

It is 2:55 pm, Netherlands time. I have been awake for a good day, but 24 hours and 3444 miles later, we are here and it is wonderful. I warn you – this is going to be a long one.

Yesterday began with a frenzy of activity, as halfway through the pre-departure orientation, I realized – I don’t have my passport.

I was like – SERIOUSLY? First my ATM card, now my passport? But luckily, it was safely at home, and Billy drove it in to Boston for me. I spotted him looking confused, wearing the black track suit he wears every day (it’s the only thing that fits him – he refuses to buy bigger pants) on Boylston street around noon.

The rest of the day was harried goodbyes, chicken pesto paninis and a lecture on Anne Frank in a warm Emerson classroom. The air was hot and heavy and a good half of us were asleep.

Traipsing onto the buses that would ferry us all to the airport, I realized how surreal this all was. There were my friends, standing outside the bus, waving goodbye. I felt – just for a second – like I was on a different bus entirely, a big yellow one with green seats and a bunch of screaming children. It felt, quite honestly, as though I was just leaving for a really long field trip.

The buses peeled away, and, as is typical of Emerson College, they peeled off in two completely different directions. We all arrived at the airport, though, so it worked out in the end.

For the record, the last time I was ever really in an airport was when I was five years old, so my mental picture of airports came mainly from episodes of Friends – like the first season finale, or the series finale, where Ross chases Rachel to the gate with remarkable ease. My reentry to Logan Airport after fifteen years, then, came with images both extremely familiar and extremely foreign.

For instance, airports (or, you know, Logan, at the very least) really does have those floor to ceiling windows that those bidding farewell to someone can press themselves up against in passion, breath fogging up the glass. The architecture is very epic – square pillars and circular beams and fans that shine lights and cast shadows that move and are honestly kind of creepy. Thanks, Kevin Bright and Marta Kaufman. What I didn’t expect, and perhaps what I should have expected, was the cacophony. There were TVs blaring CNN reports on the Holocaust, and at the same time, male and female voices blared over the speakers announcing flights and delays and other assorted information.

Our flight began, naturally, with me seated smack in the middle of a row, and there were two crying children a few rows ahead. Yes. Two. I mean - really? I like children, you all know I do, but my god.

Then, a genius Emerson College student started playing with the remotes built into our seats, and this flight attendant with a bubble of red hair came over and said that she’d better explain how the remotes worked.

"This button calls me," said the flight attendant, gently reprimanding. "This one doesn't call me."

I guess you have to have a good sense of humor to be a flight attendant.

Airplanes boggle my mind. I mean - think about it. They are large cylinders with wings, and they float in the sky carrying people inside them. HOW DO THEY DO THAT.

Honestly. We were, at the highest, FORTY THOUSAND FEET UP IN THE AIR. THAT IS VERY HIGH AND I AM WRITING THIS IN ALL CAPS FOR EMPHASIS. HOW INSANE IS THAT. FORTY THOUSAND FEET.

I’d pee myself if I ever had to be a pilot. Because airplanes seem so flimsy. Metal and people, hanging out up in the sky. You rise, rise, rise, and the air pressure rattles your teeth and blankets the air so that when you speak, it’s muffled, the sound losing its luster, muted.

The flight itself was, on the whole, pretty boring. I watched Cars (cute movie), ate some chicken that was this milky shade of white and I was really concerned before taking a bite, but it was warm and solid and tasted like chicken, so I figured that was a good thing.

I’d like to share with you something I wrote on the flight, which I think sums it up very nicely:

“It’s 4:35, Netherlands time, which makes it 10:30 in Boston. I am sitting here on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean, listening to Hannah Montana. We’ve got the party with us.”

I love myself.

So we rattled to a landing at around 7:45 am over here, wandered into a hazy Amsterdam morning, only to be greeted by an H&M, Loreal and Heineken ads, and an elderly bus driver named Jacques. Three drowsy hours passed us by, with green expanses and black sheep and windmills and McDonalds flying by the windows, and I must have fallen asleep because before I knew it, here we were at the castle, red brick and troll bridges.

“Let’s be rebels and hang out under the bridge,” Katherine said, until she noticed the moat. It figures.

I have to go have a life. More to follow.

We’ve got the party with us.