Delaware: Part Two

The optimism of yesteday's entry is almost sickening to me now. That 1940 flight to Germany was pushed to a 0025 flight...which became, by the time we left the ground a 0500 flight. For those Non-Military Americans this means that what was supposed to be a flight at about 8 o clock at night ended up leaving at 5am. 9 hours later. Needless to say I was exhausted, especially after I had spent the previous night in the same hotel bed as my dad (weird) and I fell asleep as soon as we left the ground. I awoke to us landing. HOORAY! I looked at my dad's cell phone. 8:15am? How could that be? This was supposed to be an 8 hour flight...and then the announcement came. We had returned to Dover. Let me tell you something about the Dover Air Force Base. It was hot, bland, all-white, and takes up about 12 square city blocks. This was no adventurous detour on the East Coast. This was just more time to spend in a kind of hellish limbo knowing that now, I would never be on-time for my first day of orientation. I cried. Don't worry, there's sort of a happy ending. Sort of. My dad and I rented a car. First order of business: car rental place does not take cash (although we owed them a mere $27.00) and puts a $400 hold on your checking account. Well, I am now scheduled for a commercial flight, purchased at the last minute to Europe. Needless to say, these two factors drained my parents bank account and mine as well. So I am headed to Europe for the first time, running late, with literally nothing but the almost $400 dollars in my wallet. This is very unnerving. But I am at the airport. I paid $5 for an hour of wi-fi (WAY EXPLOITATION) and I am going to be in Italy tomorrow. WHEW.

Some interesting things about being crammed in a building with the same people for long hours. The Turkish woman, after learning that I did not have a baby, warned me of Italian "very good-looking boys" who "like to pinch...and take advantage. Especially American girls." This was funny but also unsettling. Remembering my promise to Melanie about Guidos. I was also told by a forty-some black woman from Brooklyn to "Stay focused. There's gonna be distractions, but you gotta stay focused." I heard old stories from a man my grandmother's age, an American, incidentally married to the Turkish woman, about his time in the military. He even cried a little about losing both his Grandmother and Mother and being deployed during both their deaths. There was a 91-year-old man in a leather jacket who woke up at the crack of dawn to go own a 2-mile power walk and talked a mile-a-minute, never stopping to take a breath, about things like pink0 commies while his shoes were off. For a while I played guitar outside (which I guess some people walking by enjoyed because a few people told me later how much they liked it. Huh.) where it was quiet and I could pretend I was alone. After a while a man who may have been Spanish, but I'm not sure, sat and listened and then taught me the basics for Spanish and Flamenco songs as well as Celtic Irish diddies. He taught me some new chords and told me to "just keep practicing." It was amazing. Like this beautiful gift of music in the middle of all this chaos. And, in spite of the whole experience being incredibly frustrating, I have advice from people I barely knew. Most of it I had heard before, but for some reason it meant something coming from these people who didn't know me, who didn't have to care, but they still wanted the best for me. Wanted to share their wisdom. And I will take all of THAT I can get.