Re-entry

Tuesday morning (June 4th) I woke up at six, showered, and made sure I had all my bags together. Jim graciously agreed to drag himself out of bed at seven to help me get to the airport, for which I am eternally grateful, as I would never had made it on my own. Plus, paying for my train ticket to the airport and Jim’s train ticket there and back, at 24€, was still cheaper than paying for a cab. It turned out to be a good decision, financially at least, because my bags were so overweight that I had to pay an arm and a leg to check them (it was because of all my vacuum-packed clothes). But I eventually got that worked out and made it through security with no problem, although the guy letting people into the boarding area hassled me about the size of my carry-on , and the guy at the security check was flirting with me, which always baffles me and makes me shut down, so I was pretty flustered when I got through. Also they went through both my carry-on and my backpack. My Epi-pens, jars of spices and massive frying pan mixed in with clothes and makeup probably looked pretty menacing on the x-ray screen. The thing is, with my carry-ons, it’s usually almost all last-minute stuff that I almost forgot and then just squeezed in somewhere.

Wistful to be leaving Paris.


Thinking about when I can come back


Bye Jimmy :-(


My 10:25 flight to Dublin had apparently been changed to 10:40 sometime between when my Dad made the reservations and when I got to the airport, and then all the screens said it was on-time but at 10:50 it still hadn’t boarded. We finally took off around 11:15. I still had a pretty long layover in Dublin so I wasn’t really worried, but I should have been, as I hadn’t taken into account the fact that in Dublin I would have to in fact exit the terminal, go through passport control, get a new boarding pass, go through security again (with my bags opened up again), and go through US Customs and Border Protection before actually boarding my flight.

I did do all that, and ended up cutting it pretty close. The craziest thing in this whole day, though, was what happened in the Customs and Border Protection line.

I don’t know if anyone who reads this blog watches American Idol. I would like to pretend that I myself do not. However, I cannot tell a lie - I got hooked on it. I had a few favorite contestants, my two top picks being Carly Smithson and David Cook. David Cook ended up winning. Carly Smithson ended up being in the Customs and Border Protection line at Dublin airport.

I noticed her husband first - he’s pretty hard to miss. They featured him a few times on the show, and his whole face is covered in very distinct tribal tattoos. Carly has a lot of tattoos, too, and I always thought both of their tattoos were very cool, so the first thing I recognized was the tattooed face of Carly Smithson’s husband. First I thought, “Wow, that guy has a lot of tattoos on his face.” Then, “He looks like Carly Smithson’s husband.” Then, “Who’s that pretty woman next to him?” Then, “Carly Smithson is from Ireland, and I’m in Ireland.” Then, “Oh my God that’s Carly Smithson.”

I have met several famous people in my lifetime. Some I knew I was going to meet - Art Garfunkel, Davey Jones, Sam Waterston. Some, I didn’t know I was going to meet - James Taylor, Amanda Palmer, John Malkovitch (okay, okay, I didn’t really meet him, he just stared me down in a piercing parlor in Harvard Square). And most of that second list, I didn’t really get the impact of it at the time. I was seven when I met James Taylor, and I didn’t know who he was. Amanda Palmer went to LHS. and that’s where I met her, with Sam Kafrissen trying to set us up. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. This was super different. Carly Smithson may not be as famous as those people, and none of you may care who she is, but I admit that I watched American Idol every week up until about a month and a half ago. I loved her voice and her personality and he whole story. Seeing her there, it was the first time I had seen and recognized a famous person, and in such a banal setting, it seemed so unreal. So I was completely starstruck, probably for the first time in my life.

So I walked over to them. Because I am a creep. I literally was just like, “Excuse me, are you Carly Smithson?” half-expecting her to say, “No, but I get that a lot.” I was actually pretty surprised when she said yes, and then I didn’t know what to do. I was really at a loss for words. I felt ridiculous. It’s just so hard to explain how weird it was. You see someone on TV. You see them every week. You know a lot about them. Their face is very familiar to you. But it’s all static, it’s all one-way. They are on a screen. It’s a barrier. Even with live TV, it’s fixed in place, because nothing in my life would ever impact anything in her life, even though she’s impacted the lives of millions of people. So when that barrier is taken away, and I am standing next to her in the Dublin airport, and the things that she says are a direct result of the things that I say to her, it becomes very very weird, and even a little sad. She seemed a little wary, but her husband told me they were going home to the US and asked me where I was headed and was flattered and amused when I told them I liked their tattoos. I think they were pretty amused at my tongue-tiedness. Finally I told them to have a good flight and kind of ran away, embarrassed. I wish I’d said something witty or intelligent, or told her how talented I think she is (or asked her for David Cook’s phone number). I also wished I’d had an accessible camera, or asked for her autograph or something, just something that a normal fan would do, instead of standing there spluttering about tattoos. But I was just completely taken by surprise by her being there.



So yeah, I felt kind of idiotic afterwards, but it was still really freaking cool. I eventually got on my plane to Boston from Dublin with no difficulty, and that’s where I am writing this post from. I should be in Boston in a couple of hours. Home sweet home! But I miss Paris already. I have a feeling there will be posts in the future about re-adjusting to life stateside, but I’m not sure how long the Paris blog should continue now that I am no longer in Paris.