The check-in lines to Fort Lauderdale (Florida) flight were long and moved slowly at the Guatemala city airport, but arriving three hours before take off made sure I made it in time. For some reason I had never realised Florida was all desert, at least this part of; it didn't look at all like the tropical beach paradise I had imagined it to be. The border of the city from the desert was as sharp as if it would've been cut with a knife, not even one house breaking away from neat rows of buildings.
After passing through the passport control with electronic finger print collection, x-ray shots and good-old fashioned photographs I had fun at the gate observing real life images of American stereotypes all around me: rich and bitchy house wives, loud mouth African american drama queens, obese families in five dollar shorts, glitter loving latinas in too small clothes, over protective mums and annoying teenage cheerleaders were all something I though only existed in movies, or were at least uncommon enough not to be seen all on one flight.
My flight to New York was supposed to leave only two hours after the other one landed, but as everyone had got onboard an announcement asked us to get off due to a technical problem with the aircraft. This meant that I arrived to New York two hours delayed, way past midnight and got to take a late subway ride to Chelsea, to my CS friend Jen's beautiful home. We had met in Uppsala on the day before my stroke and had lots of catching up to do.
After my 7 months long and sunny summer, I was a bit sad to go straight to the Finnish winter without seeing my favourite time of year, autumn, first. This is where New York and the Central Park came to the rescue: sunny november day with maples dressed in their most spectacular autumn colours was exactly what I wanted to see.
After a long walk in the park we strolled around in the Metropolitan museum and took a ride on the Staten island ferry to see the tiny Statue of Liberty.
Our lunch menu was a New York classic, a bagel filled with 2cm layer of cream cheese, and the dinner didn't fall too far behind either, a greasy thick pizza done by 'real italians'. Tastes about a billion times better than it sounds, but it isn't hard to see why obesity is a problem in this country.
The autumn weather continued on Thursday, but this time it was rainy all day - nothing compared to heavy rains in the tropics though – so we went for an authentic brunch at China town and tried shopping at the world's largest department store, Macy´s, only to discover how terrible service can be at its worst. A cute police officer said he was sorry I was leaving, when I asked him which subway line to take to the JFK airport, and asked if I came to New York often – why did this not feel like harassment at all, just amusing, while nearly all comments from Latin American men got me so irritated? Perhaps, because I felt more safe here?
Being in New York felt nice, but at the same time a bit strange. Getting back to western reality with flushable toilet paper, people of different genders that you can treat and that will treat you in the same way, non-home made lunches and everything so well organised made me a bit confused. Like a step closer to home but not quite there yet.
There was no queue to the check-in to Reykjavik at JFK and I didn't even get my money bag stolen when I accidently left it on a chair I sat on in the terminal and came back to look for it 15 minutes later. Not quite what I thought the largest airport in New York would be like. The guy sitting next to me on the flight had a very familiar accent in English and was in fact a Finn, heading to Helsinki on the same flight as me. I was worried of how we'd make it to the next flight with only hour scheduled between them, and the guy laughed – our flight was going to land ahead of the schedule anyway – and we did actually had plenty of time even for breakfast and reading. A guess Icelandair is not quite like Guatemalan chicken buses.
On the flight to Helsinki I sat next to a guy who came to the terminal straight from the pub "which is what always happens on these business trips", and the woman sitting next to him agreed and laughed at his odour, 'the smell of old booze'. I had truly come home to my people.
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