2. Departure-Arrival

Sunrise at ElminaThough I have been in Ghana for over a month now, I still clearly remember my first few days here and the impressions I was left with. The strangest part about thinking back to my arrival is that so many things I observed that struck me as odd and foreign now seem as familiar to me as the hot dog vendors on the corners of the streets in New York.
I arrived the day before the program began and much to my annoyance, NYU refused to let me move in twelve hours early. Instead, the director of student affairs took charge of booking a hotel room for me and when I arrived at Kotoka International Airport I looked worriedly around for the Hotel Wangara placard.
As soon as I stepped off the plane the warm wet air licked my bare toes and I could feel my shirt and sweatpants starting to stick to my body ever so slightly. The walk to the baggage claim area was covered in signs, some saying “AKWAABA!” (Twi for Welcome) and others warning visitors not to contract HIV or experiment with drugs while in Ghana. The baggage claim area was a far cry from the smoothly run, well-controlled and maintained baggage claim hall at JFK or Newark. The belt was falling apart and the bags were thrown haphazardly on top of one another. Travelers jostled over space at the front of the crowd and yelled and squabbled as they tried to heave hulking great pieces of luggage off the belt. I became very afraid that my bags might not be among the others slowly making a round of the hall.

Luxembourg GardensWhen I first got here, I couldn’t stop comparing Paris to New York. Everything- the métro v. the subway, the café v. the deli, “les bises” v. the handshake- was similar to, yet distinct from, New York. Oddly, I missed the grit and grime of New York. New York isn’t beautiful, but it’s cool, and in my mind, what a city is supposed to look like.

Not like Paris. Paris is beautiful. Paris is clean. The people here are effortlessly “chic” and unapologetic with everything they do: unapologetic for smoking in your face, unapologetic for long, unmoving lines at the grocery store, unapologetic that you are unhappy with the food you’ve been served. But perhaps “unapologetic” is an unfair word. Parisians need not apologize for anything; they don’t subscribe to the pervasive American doctrine that “the customer is always right.” Lodging a complaint with a waiter, receptionist, or cashier always yields the same blinking, uncomprehending stare. Here, everything is always in its right place: the cheese is smelly, the wine is cheap, and life is good. C’est normal.

On Sundays, Paris shuts down; boutiques, restaurants, museums- closed. I can’t seem to figure out where everybody goes… the French can’t all be in church all day, can they? Once again, from the perspective of a New Yorker, this is mind-boggling. You mean they could be making money, but instead they close their doors and take a day off? The French aren’t capitalists they way Americans are; maximizing revenue is not their M.O. They work to live, but they do not live to work. 

My flight to Paris began as most flights do; with loud strangers, and a long wait. Below on the tarmac, small vehicles circled around, while inside the plane we watched them and adjusted our seat belt straps. Closing one eye, then the other, I tried to determine if our plane was actually moving, or if our movement was only an illusion created by the shifting of the planes that flanked us. When we left the ground several hours later, I had already fallen asleep.

In flight, the laws of physics seem to retreat, and we watch the ground recede with a drowsy complacency. Clouds, immediate and muscular in the small square window, become monotonous, and our focus turns instead to the screen set in front of us, where game shows and golf tournaments play endlessly. We are not comfortable, but our discomfort is a mark of our worldliness and experience; it is a privileged discomfort, and the stiffness in our necks and numbness in our feet are felt with the perverse sort of pleasure that comes from knowing that soon we will have arrived, and will emerge complaining but triumphant from the belly of the plane. The influence of flight lingers; time and gravity still seem terrifically irrelevant in the first hours of our arrival. We are set down, suddenly, in a foreign country, and our bodies feel left behind.

Typical Argentine PizzaI think that so far the hardest thing about moving to Argentina has been adjusting to the food here. Everything I’ve had here has been somewhat familiar, but not quite. 

Pizza is a very popular food here. There is a pizza place on every block and on the menu at most restaurants. One of my friends was asked by her homestay mother if she knew what pizza was. Which makes me believe that portenos mean business about their pizza just like would about their steak or empanadas.

Marie Antoinette's HameauI came to Paris a week before orientation began because I, and the two girls I live with, also from NYU-Gallatin, have housing independent of the program. Our lease started September 1, and we moved in right away so we could have a lot of time to settle. My mom came with me to help me set up, and buy groceries, and also so she could visit Paris and get time away from work. My mom loves most everything associated with European royalty, and she had never been to Versailles, so on a relatively clear day we took the RER out to the chateau.
Versailles is predictably really huge, and the chateau was actually the least exciting part for me. It was glitzy and golden and there was a lot of art, but it was also crowded and loud and pushy and not very enjoyable. We walked through some of the gardens, and ate lunch by the Grand Canal before heading toward Marie Antoinette’s domain. Visiting this part of the estate, I finally understood why France was so broke under her rule. The woman had two palaces, the Grande Trianon and the Petit Trianon, both way bigger than any house I’ve ever visited. Incidentally, there is a house in San Francisco, which is for sale right now, modeled after the Petit Trianon. So if you have a spare several million dollars and aspirations to live like royalty, you should check it out. Besides the palaces, there are twenty or so attractions scattered around the area: a theatre, a chapel, a grotto, a big rock that I didn’t understand the significance of, lots of houses, an orangerie, an English garden, etc. etc.

So before I start this, I have to be very honest and say that this is something I had to write for another class, so I am sort of cheating. I could definitely write something else, but truthfully this is the first thing I wanted to write about my arrival, so here it is:
I think I am here. I mean, I know I have arrived, but this is how airport limbo goes, especially at four in the morning. You can go outside and taste the air, but there may be hours between this airport arrival and the true final destination. In my case, I don't even know where I'm going. I've seen it on an impersonal map, but the feeling of the neighborhood and the people in my homestay are both unknowns. Also, it is still dark outside, so tasting the air is truly all I'll get...for a few hours at least.

Finally arrived in Buenos Aires!