I'm standing in the baggage claim at
Berlin-Schoenefeld airport in, like, Berlin and stuff. Snatches of conversation in different languages blow by like wind-driven sheets of rain. I had
30 euros in my pocket this morning, but had to spend more than half
of that on train tickets from Petit Bateau to Orly airport (most of
that being the tickets from the RER to the airport itself. 16 euros for a 5-minute train ride.) in
Paris. Then I spent too much of the rest of that on a bottle of water.
As we waited to board in Orly a quartet
of soldiers meandered through the crowd.
 |
| This, but in an airport.
In the US I feel like
folks would have parted around them like they've got Moses' staff
with them, not wanting to walk between them in their clean, bright
camouflage. Here people did it constantly. Wandering down the
concourse I passed between two of them just to show myself I wasn't intimidated or
overawed by action figures come to life. Their assault rifles look
toy-like and plastic, and I can tell which GI Joe figure carried that
gun. It was Dusty, and it totally makes sense that they were carrying them (though why does a Google image search for “modern French soldier
with FAMAS in airport” turn up a picture of Orlando Bloom?), though
not why he had one. He was from Las Vegas.
|
When Megan and I lived in the US we had
an apartment full of furniture and books and clothes and dishes and
a cat and all sorts of things. When we moved to Paris we pared all
that way down to a giant backpack filled with clothes and a bag full
of electronics each.
Technically, all those things we left
behind are still ours. But if you instead consider something yours
only if you have some measure of control over its fate, than it is
all lost. Presumably it will one day be ours again, but for now pfft.
Gone.
Except for my cat. He is my kitty and
the wonderful couple taking care of him while we're gone are, to all
reports (and some pictures), keeping him happy and loved and they are
an excellent host family. But he is my kitty and I will fight you if
you say different.
 |
| See? He's pining away for us. |
When we got ready to visit our friend-
let's call her Brunella- in Berlin, who promised to make us a late
American/Russian Thanksgiving dinner in the heart of Germany, we
pared down our possessions yet again. This time we packed a week's worth
of clothes- focusing on the warm (Berlin's colder than Paris)- and a
jar of duck fat for Megan's soon-to-be-famous green beans thing into
a new multi-purpose bag (at this point I want everyone to send out a
huge set of mental thanks to my supportive parents- they know why)
and those ubiquitous bags of electronics for each of us.
Just for fun- and because I know you're curious- my bag of electronics contains: my mp3
player (I forgot to bring the cord to recharge it-oops); my camera
plus charger and cord to connect to the computer; cell phone (even
though it won't work outside of France it'd be even more useless left
in Paris) and charger; and my laptop (quite likely the most valued
possession I have) and its power cord, transformer brick, and adapter
cube which lets me plug it in to Europe. In addition to the earphones
for the mp3 player I brought a set of headphones with a mic for
Skyping. It also has this journal in which I am writing, but that isn't electronic. It is running out of pages, though.
Easyjet allows one carry-on each, so
the bag of clothes got checked. It rolled up the little conveyor belt
at the check-in counter and disappeared and stopped being ours.
 |
| Pfft. Gone. |
And now I stand at the baggage claim in
Berlin-Schoenefeld airport, proud owner of nothing but a pair of
jeans, a tshirt (the self-made one with Han as he comes out of
carbonite hibernation- only one other person in the world has one and that's because I made it for him), a fleece, a coat, shoes, expected undergarments
and that bag of electronics.
I really hope our clothes (and the duck
fat) made it to Berlin like we did
No comments:
Post a Comment