Dave is…
home again, even if technically its not his home again yet.
I woke with the dawn and trust me you haven’t lived until you have seen the sun rise over France from 30,000 feet from an airplane bed that massages you. Yeah did I mention that? The chair/bed has a massage feature like those fancy chairs at Sharper Image. I am gonna be forever ruined on flight from now on after this experience. Hell, I am being forced to redefine my entire opinion of the entire country and culture of France because of this flight experience. How on earth can I go back to coach in the future?
I really didn’t want the flight to end but too solace in the fact that I had another eight hours of this luxury awaiting me on the next leg. My only regret was the next leg was so soon, my layover at Charles de Gaulle was only 40 minutes. That was barely enough time to seek out the someone discreetly hidden Air France Business Class lounge and enjoy its range of amenities. This one was way bigger than Douala’s and featured a whole breakfast bar full of croissants and juices as well as regular drinks and even Jack Daniels and ice if your tastes run that way at 745am. It also had a whole range of free newspapers and magazines and even free showers. Shoot if I had more time I would’ve loved to have taken advantage of that I feel gross already.
Instead I just raided the food and drink and hustled to get in line to board. Of course cause I have been incompetent at being classy this entire time I got in the wrong lane and one of the attendants had to tell me I was in the wrong spot and that the line for biz class people was that short express one over there. Damn, I swear if I could have a little more time I could totally get the hang of holding my nose in the air and shit instead of looking like a clueless country mouse/fish out of water. I always thought that if called upon I could totally rise to the occasion and act the gentleman, apparently I was quite wrong. I am Eddie Murphy at the beginning of Trading Places.
The Paris-NYC flight was much the same as the first. Champagne to keep me pleasant while they loaded in the plebeians, a roomy bed with amenities at my disposal, actually a full row of them as the flight was really empty. I had almost the whole row of heaven to myself. No new movies though which was a bummer as with Iron Man already watched there was little else of interest. I tried Leatherheads but found it pretty terrible in spite of its occasionally successful attempts to emulate the rapid give and take banter of the My Girl Friday era films. Still it was complete fluff without the slightest depth to it.
I almost had to deal with the bland meal thing again; apparently Swiss Air had notified this flight of that ridiculous meal selection which I never got around to correcting. Still cause it was so empty and I was such a VIP they hooked me up with their normal meals. Actually it was normal three meals. They had a breakfast of croissants and bread and fruit and cheeses. Then they had a brunch with all other kind of crazy things and then they had a final meal service which consisted of a choice of sushi or lobster tail and claw. I went with the lobster and ate most of it, figuring that itd be a shame to waste such classy cuisine and I might as well end the trip eating as adventurously as I had for the rest of it. I opted away from the scotch so early in the morning instead ordering a number of breakfast Heinekens.
I also discovered that these seats have power outlet so I plugged in the laptop and did some more typing. The only thing I was really unsuccessful at was sleeping. Despite being completely wiped cause last night even with the bed I didn’t go to sleep till 130 and had to wake up at 5 I couldn’t get back to sleep now.
I am confident I would’ve had more luck if I had had more time but all good things must come to an end and all too soon I found myself back on American soil. Immigration was a joke I don’t think the policeman looked at my passport for two seconds and after a long wait for luggage I didn’t even see a customs agent monitoring departures I could’ve brought in a whole suitcase of snails and foo-foo corn and none would be the wiser.
Once completely through security I called up Pablo and reassured her of my return. To say she was relieved would be an understatement, she had been sweating things pretty good since my first call on Tues telling dad I wasn’t gonna make it.
After that it was just an Airtran ride and a subway haul on the E to get back home. Technically its not my home yet as my room is sublet till Sunday but I figured no one would care if I put my bags down and crashed on the couch for the night.
Course I hadn’t told any of them I was coming home, in fact I hadn’t told anyone outside the immediate family that I was coming home today (or yesterday for that matter). It was in part cause I love making my arrivals a surprise and in part cause after three straight months of unavoidable social demands on my time I really wanted a little time free from those pressures and I knew if I told people Id be home today at least some of them would really want to hang out and itd be hard to explain that I didn’t want to after not seeing them for a summer without them taking it personal when really its not them its me.
To that end I expected the house to be empty but Josh was there asleep on the couch at 2pm. Turns out the Times has him working 10pm-6am hours for the entire Olympic run cause they have gone Olympics crazy sending like 35 people out there to cover it. So we hung out and caught up for a while then I went and like my last return from abroad binged on some Wendy’s. I spent the requisite digestive period watching Roadhouse that epic Patrick Swayze movie and catching up online.
I also did some unpacking to check on my stuff. Looks like most of it made it back unscathed. My largest mask did get damaged a little, the top horn cracked at the base but didn’t come off completely and some epoxy should fix it up with only a very small scar, not all that bad considering how nervous I was about my stuff surviving the long return trip.
Now one of the few who knew about my return was Max and we put together a fairly ambitious agenda for the week and change between my return and the start of school. Max rolled into town about 1030pm. It starts tomorrow with the first day of Cabinfest V: Alive, the reason I timed my return for when I did and the reason I was so beyond panicked about not getting a flight out of Douala till Swiss Air’s Friday flight. He was coming into town today from Syracuse where he was visiting his old buddies from his tenure at Disneyworld and he rolled up around 1030.
We got him parked and then wandered down to the Bohemian Beer Garden to welcome us both to town with a drink. Granted it did end up including a drink but it was exactly the kind of low key, low social pressure return I needed.
Misc Notes:
Coming out of Wendy’s I saw my first Favre Jets jersey in the window of a sports store. I may have followed the whole thing closely online from Cameroon but its still damn strange to see those shirts for sale.
Got my first American hot shower this afternoon, felt damn good. In the whole time I was in Cameroon I only got eight hot showers, including the one in the hotel yesterday and it was nice to get in the shower without having to psyche yourself up for it first.