The Flight and the Return

In the Botanic Gardens

We settled back into Edinburgh for the last few days of my family’s trip and of my time abroad. We visited Stirling Castle, Edinburgh Castle, and the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, and it all seemed like a dream after such a long semester.

We drove to airport on June 3rd, and rushed in, since my family had an early flight directly to Newark. I had a flight that had been booked with my original flight, so it was later in the morning, and had a layover in Heathrow. My first flight was delayed, however, because Heathrow was ‘temporarily full’. Anxious, I eventually boarded the plane and flew into London’s enormous airport, and ran. I took a shuttle, went through another security checkpoint, and emerged into an incredibly long hallway in the correct wing only to look up at a monitor that told me, in terrifyingly red-colored font, that my gate was CLOSING. I ran. As fast as I could, I ran. Bags flying to and fro, I ran down a hallway that seemed to go on forever, so long indeed that I needed to slow to a fast walk at one point in time. But I was determined. I thought to myself ‘I will run back to America if need be’, and I ran until my lungs could do no more, until at last, there was my gate. I managed to run into the end of the line for checking tickets, and very soon found myself boarding the plane back home.

After a long flight, it was announced that we were arriving into JFK, and I looked out of the window and saw, for the first time in five months, baseball diamonds. Personal swimming pools. SUVs. I saw things that I had hated, and I was surprised at how happy I was to see them, just for the fact that they were so characteristically American. I still remember getting off the plane, and entering the citizen line, passport in hand, and being called to one of the customs booths, where a stern man looked at my documents, and seeing a vagueness in my declarations, asked, “What gifts did you bring back?”

“Um... I don’t know, just some little ones, I-” Stumbling, exhausted and trying to remember...

“Like what? Come on, start listing” How fast he talks!

“Um, okay, ahh... a stuffed animal, some books, a bottle of whiskey...” He jots them down as I talk, and before I go on, he stamps my passport.

“Welcome home.”

“Oh, thank you very much.”

Using only public transit (which I love dearly), I traveled seamlessly from the airport to Greenwich, where my grandparents greeted me with a warm meal and a warm bed, which I collapsed into at once. The following day, never stopping my momentum, I moved into Connecticut College for my summer research. I was greeted by my friend and roommate for the summer, Corey, who was still in his pajamas, which, as I think of it now, was quite the contrast to my state of mind. And my first major act in America was to go to a Dinosaur Park with Corey and Kate, which was appropriately hilariously fun, and made me feel that I was very much back home.

I quickly settled back into life in America, with brand new perspectives on the country, my lifestyles, my friends, and my life in general. It was a semester with good and bad, and it was a semester that I needed.

Thanks for reading.

Best Regards,

Riordan