Arabic Language School, Part 1: The Arrival

Friday, June 13, 2008

So, I woke up at 5:15AM this morning to catch a 7:25AM flight out of SJC to Middlebury. Little did I know, it was going to be quite a day.

I got to SJC with plenty of time. I had two heavy bags (one non-rolling duffle, the fiend), so I decided to go with curbside check-in. Yes, they charge $2 per bag, but I was by myself and didn’t really feel like braving the line inside. Just as Mom pulled away from the curb and as I reached the head of the line, the baggage guy suddenly and inexplicably left the kiosk. Strange. He reemerged a few minutes later only to inform the now growing line that he could not check us in outside because both, I repeat both, machines were broken. Sweet.

For the 30 seconds it took me to get inside I was suddenly possessed with superhuman strength. 50 pound bag in the left hand, 50 pound bag in the right, 25 pound bag on my back. Totally baller.

Mom called to say she was still circling, and I started getting nervous about the second bag/medical device issue. Damn airlines. Mom came back just in time to get to the check-in counter. At first things went smoothly, until the woman who had been helping us also inexplicably disappeared. 2 for 2 so far.

Finally, I got to my plane. A little turbulence because of storms in Chicago, but we actually landed in Dulles 7 minutes early. Awesome. What happened next, however, was not.

On the way to my Dulles-Burlington, VT connection, I grabbed a chicken taco. Yes, this is the sad state of airport food. I NEVER eat Mexican food. Got on the plane. Sat. Listened to flight attendant wax philosophical about slow regional flight embarkment speeds. The soft crackle of the loudspeaker sounds. “For unknown reasons, we can no longer use the plane. Please gather your belongs, disembark, and wait for the gate agent to redirect you.” Dang, and I had a window seat too.

The Setting: Gate C20, IAD, 4:50PM.
The Atmosphere: Overcrowded, slightly damp from humidity
The Voice of Doom: “Your flight has been cancelled. Please report to the United Customer Service desk in Terminal D to be rebooked.”

WTF?! Somehow I end up behind a mother with a young kid and arrive almost dead last to a line of 50 other people trying to get to Burlington. Who knew this was such a popular destination?

The line doesn’t move. I call Mom to say that my flight has been cancelled. She immediately calls United to get me rebooked. I wait. A guy who just got up to the front of the counter calls out to a guy standing off to the side, “It looks like you got the ticket to Burlington.” Apparently, United had one more flight leaving Dulles that day, but it was now completely booked. Panic begins to set in. The two guys behind me are both on their cell phones yammering away about how they’ll probably be spending the night in Dulles. Ummm, hell no. I have a placement exam at 8:30AM tomorrow morning. I am not spending the night in Dulles.

Mom = my savior. “I got you a flight through La Guardia that leaves at 5:51PM on United. Then you switch to US Air which will take you to Burlington.” It’s definitely 5:15, and I’m in the wrong terminal. But I definitely have owned the system by circumventing the Customer Service line.

At this point, there is really only one thing to do: run. I strap my blue lunch box with all the cold meds to my backpack and take off. I immediately become conscious of the fact that I have now become a medical symphony. Between the half-full jumbo jar of Motrin and the panc bottle, I am making a veritable racket as I race to the air train.

I hop on with 1:59 minutes to spare. Heck yes. Get to A3, stand in line, get to the ticket counter. I don’t have a confirmation number or any sort of ticket since I just go rebooked over the phone, so the guy does a lot of fast typing with a furrowed brow. His radio starts crackling, the lady next to me gets into an altercation – in Hindi – with another US Air employee about her flight that she apparently missed doing who knows what. My guy leaves. Yep, leaves. Awesome, I’m supposed be in the air in less than 15 minutes and prospects are looking grim.

Finally, he comes back and prints my ticket. They call for boarding which had been delayed because of a competing flight going to Ohio. All of those passengers were informed that they should ALL go to the bathroom because the lavatory was locked from the inside on their flight. I have to say that this was slightly hilarious but only because I wasn’t going to Ohio.

This next part I feel kind of bad about, but not really. As I walked across the tarmac to board my flight, a woman was counting passengers. I was number 36. I got on the plane and 3 people boarded after me. Strange. As I looked around, there were certainly about 10 open seats. Whatevs…until the flight attendant got on the loudspeaker to explain that our “friends” (yes, she called them friends) would not be joining us because they were weight-restricted. What does that even mean? I felt kind of badly because I had just booked this flight like 30 minutes before, and some people probably had purchased their tickets months ago. Finally, a lucky break.

Got to La Guardia without trouble. However, navigating through La Guardia = with trouble. None of signs said anything about different terminals, a people mover, or anything that I was looking for. I needed Bus B. Finally, I talked to an airport employee who directed me toward ground transportation. Still confused because Bus B was not well marked. It turned out to be one of many lines that left out of a large green bus stop. Logical in retrospect, yes. Unclear and unmarked at the time, yes.

On the bus, I sat next to a guy who had been sitting across the aisle from me on the now-cancelled Dulles-Burlington flight. Talking to him put everything into perspective. He had left Monrovia, Liberia on Tuesday. Yah, Tuesday. It was def Friday evening at this point.

Spent beaucoup de temps on the runway waiting to take off. After a half an hour, we were informed that we could use of cell phones for a few minutes because we were no 10th in line. Progress!

11:02PM, BVT.
(Saturday, June 14, 2008)
12:02AM, BVT.
1:02 AM, BVT.

Yes, shared rides also means waiting. Apparently for two hours. Two other Arabic students – from Denmark and Pakistan – were bringing up the rear with KIP from California. Since when did flying from California become on par with Europe and South Asia. A veritable mystery.

2:00AM Middlebury College. Department of Public Safety.

Got my special ID card made right in front of me. Got me room key. Dropped my room key. No, we do not have any check-in materials. So, no. You cannot have any idea what you’re supposed to be doing tomorrow. I asked for a map.

Fortunately, Denmark lady and Pakistan guy both were here last summer, so they know the drill. Maybe those two hours spent in BVT were worth something after all.

2:39AM Go to sleep! Can’t fall asleep.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

6:45 AM Wake-up. Hells yah. Looking good in yesterday’s clothes on 3.5 hours of sleep. Yah, yesterday’s. My bags never made it to Burlington lat night. Tots baller.

Breakfast could most aptly be described as a stress fest. Everywhere, people were cramming for the placement exam. Talking about how they would *die* if they didn’t get into level who knows what.

Needless to say, I left quickly.

I wandered around the campus with a map trying to locate the check-in center so I could “complete” my arrival (i.e. pay!). Got to Axinn. Door locked. Deserted. Sat in an Adirondacks chair to call information to get Middlebury’s main number. This information apparently is not important enough to be included on their map or on the ID card.

Information Man tells me to call back in 5 minutes because he has more *urgent* calls to deal with. Oh, snap. I’ll tell you what’s urgent, buddy. I’m a psycho maniac on three point five hours of sleep who slept in her underwear last night on a bare mattress under a ratty blanket that was probably first used in the 1970s. Fucking direct my call. (On the inside). Will do. (On the outside).

No time left, so I go to the placement exam. I knew that I said in the handbook that it would be from 8:30AM-1:00PM, but I kind of assumed that there would be multiple sittings. You know, A-K, L-P, R-Z. Something of that nature.

NO.

8:30-10 Reading.
10:15-11:45 Writing.
12-1 Grammar.
2:10 Oral Interview.

Right.

Call Mom to left off some steam about all of they above, and I mean all. Plus the fact that my room is smaller – yes, this is possible – than my room in Roble. Yah, remember the converted SUPLLY CLOSET! Also, no fridge. WTF. Def ordered one. No carpet. Stranger vertical tubing bar support thing in the corner with seriously crumbling ceiling connection.

Quick lunch. I get back to the room to cram for my oral. I make the mistake of trying to open the blind to my jail-cell sized window (the room next mine has a wall of 6 consecutive windows, yah). I keep pulling figuring that it will eventually do the release-reverse thing and go up, but no. That would be too easy. I pull the damn thing off of its cardboard tubing. Apparently, the window cover had been stapled to the rod. Yes, very sturdy. A colossal engineering feat to be sure.

Oral exam. Okay, so the dude was talking a mile a minute over a loudly whirring fan. Khalil and Ramzi always made sure to gesture and talk slowly so that we’d understand. No such luck. He seemed really nice, but I wanted to give him an Arabic speeding ticket.

Thunderstorm nap. BEST part of the entire day.

Dinner = good. Yacoubian Building = good. I have a friend, which = good. My bags finally ARRIVE from Dulles (via Philadelphia??? Odd).

9:57PM. Walking in the rain with a borrowed umbrella and a now wet and tattered map toward Public Safety. I don’t get lost. Feeling v. proud of myself since it is dark and I’m in a foreign land.

Public Safety Episode a.k.a. Kate is flabbergasted and on the verge of a highly embarrassing public breakdown.

I think the following interlude is best portrayed as a dialogue.

Me: Hi, my name is Kate Powell. I got a call earlier saying that my bags had arrived from Burlington.
OTHBL (stands for “Over-the-Hill Bitch Lady”): in an exasperated, you spoiled student, voice. Yah.
Me: Thank you so much for holding them. I was hoping I could borrow the baggage cart.
OTHBL: No.
Me: confused
OTHBL: We don’t have a baggage cart.
Me: I was under the impression that you did. I think I read it in the handbook.
OTHBL: No you didn’t because we don’t have a baggage cart.
Me: flabbergasted. Thinking about the rather sizable hill I had walked *down* to get to Public Safety. Oh, and the rain. Oh, and the fact that each bag weighed 50 pounds. Silence from the OTHBL. I’m looking around trying to keep it together for like 20 seconds, and she doesn’t say a thing. WTF. That is all I have to say. Actually, I have a lot more:

Do you think that I chose to have my bags brought here? Do you think I’m going to walk in the rain, uphill with 100 pounds of luggage? In the rain, and uphill. OTHBL, give me a goddamn break.

Me: holding it together like a pro-o. Well…do you have some sort of safe ride vehicle? In my mind, do I have to be fucking wasted to get a ride at night? In the rain? Uphill?

OTHBL: no response

At this point, the other two people who have been staring at me throughout the conversation pipe in. The nicer old man behind the desk realizes that I’m the one he talked to earlier and that it would probably be impossible for me to move them myself.

Then the cop gets involved. Old man suggests that copper drive me. So nice!! But, I still felt kind of badly about this, because it’s definitely not his job to drive people and their bags. BUT, it was really helpful.

Well, sorry that this was such a long and rather negative post. BUT, it’s what happened the last 48 hours. When I am in a better mental state (i.e. have had more sleep), I will describe VT’s beauty and the nice girls I’ve met.

Until then…

مع السلامة