It's cold. It's empty. It's quiet. It's clean. It's Fargo. and Fargo is home. Since I got here I keep repeating in my head, "I live here. This is home." in the hope that it will start to sink in. I still feel like I'm just visiting this seriously population-lacking city and that in a few days I'll be going back. I can't bring myself to change my time on the computer to Fargo time. I'll have to do that soon. It's only been about 12 hours though. The trio (Mohamad, Wafa and Omar) came a few hours ago; their train was late. Their sleeping schedules and mine are going to be complete opposites now. It's 8 am and I just woke up after three hours of sleep; they went to sleep at 5 too but they'll probably wake up around 1 or 2 or later. That means I'll be tired at around 6 or 7 pm and they'll be tired around 3 or 4 am. Beautiful.
The flights were good. We were cutting it last minute the whole time. My uncle who drove us to the airport was really tired and kept falling back asleep so, since I had to take all 8 of our 50 pound suitcases down three flights of stairs by myself, we left about 40 minutes later than planned. Check-in was smooth and since my grandma had ordered a wheelchair to take her to the gate in the Cairo airport, we had no problem with time. The guy who was pushing the wheelchair has the right to skip all the lines (passport control, security, boarding). Once we got to the gate, we, along with the rest of the 'passengers with disabilities' and their families boarded first. I was really impressed actually at how it works. They have a truck with a platform thing that goes up like an elevator so that the passengers don't have to get out of their wheelchairs. That truck then takes the passengers and their families directly to the plane and elevates to the level of the door so that, unlike the other passengers in Cairo, they don't have to climb a flight of stairs to get into the plane. Because they are the first to board, all the flight attendants are free to help them find their seats and put away their luggage. I was impressed.
Upon arrival in Amsterdam, an electric cart picked my grandmother and the other passengers requiring wheelchairs up from the gate and brought them to the waiting area where they were to be picked up an hour before boarding time for their next flight. The woman driving the cart checked all of the passengers in and gave them back their boarding passes. We had a six-hour layover so we spent a lot of time wandering and sleeping. Our flight was scheduled at 1:15. At about 12:15 and again at 12:20 a man came around asking for passenger Morgan to San Francisco. He looked at my grandmother expecting her to be passenger Morgan but she was passenger Ouda to Minneapolis. By about 12:25 we were starting to wonder what was going on; we would be late to our plane if we waited much longer. My grandma took out her boarding pass to check her time and realized that she did indeed have passenger Morgan's boarding pass to San Francisco, leaving at 1:25. She went immediately to the desk and there they realized that passenger Morgan and my grandmother's boarding passes had been switched when the driver of the electric cart took them to check-in for them. Passenger Morgan was not around so it took them about 15 minutes to straighten some things out and print my grandma's new boarding pass. Again, since we were with a wheelchair pushing person, we were fine despite being tight for time since we skipped all lines. When they were scanning the ticket for us to board, my grandma's ticket beeped, telling the guy 'already checked-in'. I quickly explained to the guy what had happened over at the waiting area for people with wheelchairs. They all immediately looked alarmed but let us board right away. As we were walking in the tube, one of the ticket agents from outside was helping an elderly passenger walk, explaining to her that she had been taken to the wrong plane. The elderly passenger, clearly passenger Morgan, had been one of the women on the electric cart with my grandma early. Beyond a careless mistake, does this seem alarming to you?? Passenger Morgan boarded a plane from Amsterdam to Minneapolis in the name of Rawia Ouda. Through all the security checks and questioning in the airport before boarding a plane to the US how could they have possibly not noticed the name on her boarding pass didn't match the name on her passport??? Also, what would have happened if we'd all fallen asleep (which actually almost happened). Passenger Morgan, intending to go to San Francisco, would have ridden the plane to Minneapolis. Wow.
On the plane I watched a Bollywood film called 'You, Me and Us'. It took me until the last 2o minutes of the movie to realize that it was the Bollywood version of The Notebook. It is almost an identical story with a nominally happier ending. Good mood lifter.
We had slightly less than two hours scheduled between landing time from Amsterdam and departure time to Fargo in Minneapolis. I'm not sure who scheduled it like that but never again. Two hours really isn't enough time to get through passport control, get our 8 bags from the baggage wheel, put them on the conveyor for customs, get them from the conveyor for customs, put them back on the conveyor to go to our plane, check-in to our flight, and still be at the gate 30 minutes before departure time. We wouldn't have made it without the help of my grandma's wheelchair pusher who allowed us to skip all of the quite long lines, a very helpful baggage worker who acted as porter for us, taking care of our bags through all the conveyor belts and several of Minneapolis' electric cart drivers. Despite all of their help we were still the last ones to board the plane but the important thing was that we made it.
In Fargo, quite miraculously, all of but one of our bags arrived. That last one arrived to us in our house about 3 hours later. On the drive home I was stunned by the lack of people. I feel like I'm in a dead-town despite the fact that I'm in the largest 'city' in North Dakota. We got home at 7 pm; the trio was scheduled to arrive at the Fargo train station at 3 am. My dad made us a great dinner and then we unpacked and organized as best we could. I did my best to set out beds for everyone. We're currently using all of the sheets in our house except for the extra-long ones for my dorm. I guess that means we're at our full capacity. :)
I'm still in utter disbelief at how horribly the guy cut my hair. I liked my hair long; I just wanted to trim it a bit and give it shape so it didn't get too long in the coming months. I explained that to him but, nevertheless, he chopped my hair off. Taking away the length and any shape that it did have. My mom helped me relax (chemically straighten) my hair yesterday. It's less frizzy but I'm still not exactly pleased with it.
The trio's train arrived late and they came to our house around 4:30 am. They were all beat from a month of ridiculously hard work and lack of sleep. We chatted for a little bit and went in to sleep around 5:30. It took me a really long hard to sleep. I could hear every tick and tock of my clock, every peep of a bird from outside the room. It was eery. The quiet hum of my computer on my desk seemed like the roar of a supersonic jet to me and I had to get up and turn the computer off before I managed to fall asleep. I guess it will be good once I'm moved into the dorms. We all know it's never silent in a college dorm. :D
Kimo has forgotten so many things about home. I stopped at a water fountain to take a drink at the Amsterdam airport. "What are you doing with that faucet, Ayah," he asked. "I'm drinking water," I said. "What," he asked, "you're licking water?? Hehe..that's funny. Can I try the faucet water?" When my mom came he excitedly told her about he faucet and how she could try the faucet water if she wanted. When we went out to the parking lot in Fargo, Kimo couldn't pick out our car and even when my dad pointed at our van he asked incredulously, "that big van is ours??' He was confused when my dad started buckling his seatbelt for him, "Hehe..what's that for, daddy?" He was endlessly amused by the fact that the freezer has a button for ice. He was falling asleep in the car but as soon as we got home he spent hours playing with his toys. He remembered none of them so it was liking having a house full of new toys.
I've forgotten my fair share of things too. I tried to check my cell phone messages but failed, having forgotten my voicemail password. It took me a while to see my new text messages too because I've completely forgotten how the menus on Samsung phones work. I've forgotten where a lot of the light switches are and, of course, I can't find anything. Anytime I want something I have to tear apart my room to figure out where I put it.
Some differences between Fargo, ND and Cairo, Egypt:
-the refrigerator in Fargo makes things cold
-it is possible to spot more than one person an hour in Cairo
-it's logical to wear a sweatshirt in Fargo in July
-free water in Fargo!
-although Fargo has central AC in most places it's 100 times less needed than in Cairo
-driving in Fargo involves rules-
in Fargo I can leave my house whenever I want. Want to go grocery shopping at 2 in the morning? Go for it!
More to come.Well, I'm out to buy some things for breakfast; we'll see if I remember how to drive stick.
Posted by ayah at 8:19 AM 0 comments
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