Au Revior America

I am in a Boeing 747 with our country beneath me and my adventure ahead. Attempting to get a head start on acclimating my ears to new sounds I eavesdrop on the conversations around me. I try desperately to understand the Spanish being spoken a row behind. Something about a woman and not wanting to be a "wing-man". He said, "wing-man" in English, so I'm not really understanding much. There is Dutch being spoken in front of me and the passenger to my left is headed to Mumbai. I have quickly become a minority. We are still technically in America, albeit at 10058 meters above the ground, and yet I can already notice how foreign my surroundings have become. I'm flying over Utah and we have already converted to the metric system!

I have encountered a little turbulence so far; metaphorically speaking. Nothing too major but they gave me the wrong boarding pass in the airport. A mistake that I didn't think could be made. When I first checked-in with the airlines they issued me a ticket stating that my seat was requested but not yet assigned. While this normally wouldn't bother me, I had spent a good twenty minutes yesterday deciding whether or not I wanted a window seat facing the north or the south. Not only could I have a window seat but I could choose which side of the plane I would sit on! When taking a ten hour flight, these kinds of decisions are of the utmost important. If given the choice, of course I wanted comfort with a view! To find that my selection of a north facing window seat was unconfirmed worried me. Would I find myself in the middle of a row with nothing to rest my head on and no window to gaze out of? At the gate, I went to the desk to politely inquire as to why my seat selection was not honored. Without any explanation, the woman behind the counter issued me a south-facing window seat to Amsterdam as well as the boarding pass for my flight to Barcelona- or so I thought it was my boarding pass. It wasn't until they were about to board the plane that I realized the second ticket I was holding was to Toulouse, France! I am not supposed to be in France for another two weeks. I was given someone else's boarding pass! I thought things like that only happened in Home Alone:2. The mistake was quickly fixed but of course the voyage had to start with a hiccup.

It's been smooth sailing , or flying rather, since then. The view out the south-side window is beautiful. America's topography is amazing. Summits and ridges melt into flatness and I can see where water that no longer flows carved out crevices in the land. The ground has changed from giant boulders rippled with orange and pink to peaks dusted with snow. The red rocks and painted desert of Utah have quickly become Wyoming. What would be a several hour drive on land is only fifteen minutes at 965 km/hr. I am high enough to see the shadows created by the clouds. Massive mountains are merely bumps in the landscape below. Up at this altitude, the whiskey is surprisingly free and the selection of inflight movies includes Django: Unchained. My plastic glass of Dewar's has clogs and bicycles etched along the rim. The Holland Herald, the magazine in the seat pocket in front of me, boasts an article about "one of the world's most beautiful cities-- Barcelona". I am excited. My sabbatical has begun. Au revior America!