Beyond the Backyard #9: And this is how it ends - South America

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Packing

Before I left, Jacob raided his employer the Easter Bunny and brought home a candy store for me to take back to Toronto. I have never seen so much candy in one shot. There was gum, gooey things, hard candies, chocolates, chocolates filled with chocolate, and so on... In addition to all the junk I had accumulated on my own (like a marble sea monster statue and a lamp made out of a tree trunk), I was now taking home enough candy to feed my entire neighbourhood for the next three years.

Needless to say, he packed my suitcase for me.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I hate airports, and I hate goodbyes. Enough said.

The flight home from Buenos Aires was without a doubt the bumpiest one I ever experienced. Six of the eight and a half hours were turbulence that kept passengers and stewards in their seats and did away with any appetite I may have had. The good news is that I got to Miami more or less in one piece.

After walking though an impossibly long hallway and standing in impossibly long lineups at the ungodly hour of 4:30am, and after figuring out (still in Spanish) that my luggage was already on its way to Toronto, I trudged up to the Air Canada ticket counter, and upon finding them closed, promptly fell asleep on the floor in the lounge.

It was a great sleep.

After a short argument with the Air Canada reps (I lost), an airport quality breakfast with an American grandmother who had spent her summer doing research in Bolivia (she had flown the Bolivian national airline and had more stories than me!), I headed towards the gate to board my flight to Toronto, but...

...Air Canada only allows two pieces of carry-on luggage. I had four. Never mind that United had allowed me to take it all with me. Air Canada said no. So out came a huge plastic bag from the local grocery store in Buenos Aires, and in went three of my oddly shaped and fragile pieces of luggage. Half-dragging it down another impossibly long hallway, I finally gave up, removed the pieces from the breaking bag, and boarded my flight without a problem.

My biggest concern about getting home was clearing customs in Toronto. How on earth was I going to explain to them why I had several hundred dollars' worth of candy? I could just imagine the conversation.

Them: Look what we've found! Illegal samples of candy!

Me: No, they're not samples! I'm not selling them! They're for me!!

Them: She's lying! Lock her in the dungeon and throw away the key! (then they descend on my chocolates and gobble them all up)

Luckily, no one asked and no one seemed to care, and I escaped the customs and baggage clearance area with all my candy still carefully concealed, into the waiting embrace of my dad, who had camped out by the exit ramp and was eyeing the door waiting for me to appear. The job of lifting the suitcases was then handed to him, and the standard question of "What on earth do you have in here? Rocks?" was truthfully answered with "yes". I had indeed brought rocks.

Then we zoomed home in the Zarekmobile, and I promptly fell asleep.

I've been at home for almost a month now. The culture shock has worn off, but not before getting myself into some interesting situations. Like the time when I was at the grocery store and wanted to pay for my food with Visa. The clerk rang up the bill and I handed her my credit card and driver's license.

She looked at me like I was nuts.

"I don't need this, dear."

I forgot you don't need to show ID when buying something with plastic. They're so trusting here.

Drivers stop at red lights here. Pedestrians have the right of way. No one is going to try sneaking into my backpack on a crowded subway (for the most part). Pesos can't buy me a cream cheese bagel for lunch, even if I don't have any other change on me. And there's no dulce de leche either.

Now it's back to the regular routine of work and school, but I'm still restless. After spending those few months on the road, coming and going as I please, it's a lot harder now to readjust to going to classes and sticking to a timetable. I can't just get up and leave, no matter how boring the political science lectures are or how much I don't like my job. C'est la vie, I guess.

I think I've developed wanderlust.



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