Part 1 of the "America Series"

I'm going to try and unravel the twisted chords that make up my trip to America. The fine details of international travel are hard to recollect in the moment, but careful reflection afterwards allows a person the opportunity to replay the scenes again and again in their mind in order to catch every small detail. It also gives me a chance to embellish it a little. So until something cool happens here that's worth talking about, I'll share some of my stories from my trip home. Enjoy.

So first, when I get to New York, I was greeted by two very rude people. In fact, the very first person I talked to on American soil was rude to me. It was the guy behind the customs desk. I am in the American citizens line. I slide the guy my American passport. I speak to the guy in American English. He asks me, again in his New Yorker English, "Where you from?" I respond, in my more refined, but very much Southern English, "I'm coming from Turkey." "Oh yeah," he replies, "you speak English?" "Yes sir, I do," you jerk. Does it sound like I speak English? I mean, I'm in the American citizen line, he's holding my American issued passport, and I'm speaking English with him in a perfect Southern accent. Give me a break. Then he reads my shirt. "Dave Matthews, who's that?" he asks. "It's a favorite singer of mine." "Oh yeah, do you sing?" "Not real good." "That's too bad," in his perfectly obnoxious New York accent. At that point, I was ready to turn around, get back on the plane, and go back to Turkey. Looking back, I should've expected it, being in New York and all, but it just ticked me off. Nobody in Turkey would've been that rude. Why are the people in my own country, that speak my own language, and understand my own culture the ones that are rude to me?

After I had made my way over to the other airport, I had to go through security again. Remember, I've already been through security twice. Once in Adana, which is pretty minimal, but then again in Istanbul, which was a pretty tight security check, since it was a flight into NY. They wouldn't let this one guy bring two beers on board the plane, so I watched him chug what looked like two 40s of some Russian beer right there in line. He was much happier a few minutes later. But anyways, I check my bags and head to the security check point. They run my two carry on bags through and say that they are going to inspect my black one. No big deal, probably just a random check or something. Well the guy takes out my tube of toothpaste and says he's going to confiscate it. "Why?" I ask. "Because you're not allowed to have liquids in amounts larger than 3.5 ounces in your carry on. Don't you fly?" "Sir, I don't even live in this country." "Well you can read our website, tsa.gov, it's all there." So the jerk took my toothpaste. Now, I'm sure that reading this it doesn't sound nearly as rude as it really was. Both of these guys had that harsh New York accent and were punks as they did their jobs. Plus, I was sleepy, since I hadn't slept hardly a wink on the flight and at that point, had been awake for about 20 hours or something like that.

I found out later that there was some terrorist plot to blow up JFK that same day. I guess I shouldn't complain too much, it could've been a lot worse.

So I get on the plane to go to Atlanta. We board right on time and start to taxi out to the runway. And we sat there. And we sat there. We were probably sitting there for a good half an hour before they ever said anything. Finally the captain came on to announce that there was a backlog of planes trying to take off and that we'd be coming up in about, oh, 2 hours! That's right, two hours. Luckily, we got off a little ahead of schedule, but we still ended up sitting on that runway for a full two hours. We sat for two hours when it was only a little over two hours to Atlanta. AND, since it was such a short flight and since airline companies aren't known for their service (maybe that's why they're all going bankrupt), we didn't get snacks on this flight. Nope, no peanuts and Coke during the two hour delay or during the two hour flight following it. It was pretty ridiculous.

So I'm two hours late getting in and I couldn't find Gouge anywhere in the airport. I walked around in circles carrying all my luggage. Finally I stopped, took out my laptop, got his number from my contact list, and started hunting down a pay phone. Luckily, before I found one, I found Gouge. He was standing near the exit with a sign that said, "Mr. C-Love." It was great to finally be there, to see Gouge again, and to be greeted with some hospitality!