meeting HIM

so there I was, standing at Detroit airport, cuddling with Michael, feeling strange and dizzy. i can't say i wanted to sleep though, i just needed to. there was a board with a list of hotels and their numbers. Michael called "Day's Inn" and we started waiting for a hotel car to pick us up.

when we got to hotel, we chcked in and went to our room. i took a 365 photo:



the room was small and very cosy. kind of reminded me of marriott room.. the light was very soft. the first thing i was to do was taking a shower! then i put on some make-up, and changed the shirt. i had one shirt in the carry-on to get changed into, however i had no wish to open up the main pieces of luggage.

after the shower and all that i felt like a woman again, not like some tired strange creature of neutral gender :D:D

we decided to go down and have something to eat. i wasn't really hungry, but my body needed some "fuel" (food). it was a nice american bar, which was actually not very different from those in Armenia.. just everybody was talking english and watching TV in english. there was a christmas tree right behind our table. i was just sitting there, watching people of all kinds, and feeling myself like in a movie.

then we were to order food. i saw "nachos" among appetizers, and decided to get it since it was something familiar at least. and we ordered some wine.

nachos.. appetizers... the lady brought... should i say a plate? it was more like a tray filled with nachos. i ate some and then i was full! so when the lady came back she asked "oh you didn't like the nachos?" implying i didn't eat at all. i said i liked them just it was kind of too much!! later Michael said probably those appetizers were for 4 people - like when you go with a company, you can get one appetizer instead of each person getting one. but yeah it was funny :D

anywhooo. we had to get up at 5.30 in the morning to go back to the airport. ok now some explanation. we couldn't go from Detroit, MI to Cleveland, OH directly. my destination point was Detroit. from there another flight was booked - from Detroit to Chicago, from Chicago to Cleveland. why? because the direct flights are available only when you are coming from overseas - that is to say if my destination during the first flight was Cleveland, i would go directly to Cleveland from Detroit. i can't say it's stupid, because people who come from other countries arrive at an international airport and then go to their final destination directly.

i could go to Cleveland directly - but Michael couldn't. but oh well +/- another airport.. who cares since we are together.

so there we were half-asleep, going through some customs to finally go home. we went to get something to eat after everything was done. i called mom again (the first time i remembered to call was at the hotel). we had a croissant (or smth like that) witch chocolate and capuccino. it was good.

i don't actually remember much about the flight.. i think i was reading a book and listening to music, but the brain was kind of switched off anyway :D

Chicago airport sucked. there were no moving paths and you had to walk much distance just on foot. it was then when we found out Michael's phone was gone! i remembered we used it when i was calling mom.. but when we were getting up from the cafe table at Detroit airport i double-checked on the table to make sure we didn't leave anything. then we realized that Michael put his coat among other things on the shelf on the plane. so probably the phone just fell out of the pocket and stayed on the plane. that sucked even more! we couldn't get ahold of anybody :D

the plane we were to go to from Chicago to Cleveland was tiny. i mean *tiny*. my carry-on (which was of standard size) was way too big to go on the shelf, and it was placed somewhere in the bottom of the plane - just at the entrance me and other people with same problem would give the carry-ons to the stewardess and go occupy the seats. on one side of the plane there were double seats, on the other side - just one. it was just like a flying bus i swear! but it was comforting to know that after this flight we would be home...

i took some photos when we were about to land - the first one is the plane going through clouds, the rest.. you know :D ah and also - the third photo is how i actually saw it all - the contrast and colors are not corrected. so i got quite a grey and dull image.




NASA!!! i saw it with my eyes!!! i was like WOW!!! :D


there was ice right on the landing path!!

anyway. after landing we went to get my luggage. there was one piece.. but the second piece was missing! but oh my god how did they happen to loose just one piece? and not on international flight but on a local one?? that second question was comforting - at least we knew it was in america :D so we went to the company desk which was "american eagle" or smth like that. and had to wait in a long que of people who were actually going somewhere. so since we were the last ones on the line we waited for about 25 minutes just to say "you guys lost our luggage. now what?". Michael filled out some forms and they asked me to describe what the luggage looked like and what the bag contained. the problem was we couldn't even give them a phone number to call to since Michael's phone was lost! so Michael gave Steve's number and we decided to get phone numbers first of all, to call Steve and my family in Armenia.

quick note: you know the blue wrapping of the luggage they do at Zvartnots airport don't you? nobody else had it in America :D probably there was some wrapping service somewhere but people didn't really use it and anyway it was see-through, not blue :D. actually the lady at the Detroit airport asked if i was coming from Paris, Charles de Gaulle airport. i said i was coming from Yerevan, but i went through exactly that airport. the lady said the only place she knew they would do such kind of wrapping was there :D

then we walked to Michael's car. during the drive home i was just looking out of the window. the sky was grey, there was no sun, no mountains, the building were 1 or 2-stroreyed. big buildings though. the roads were smooth. another thing i noticed was that there were like 4 or 5 sets of traffic light hanging on one line. i asked Michael why they didn't put just one. the reply was "to make it easier for everybody to see from any line of the road" i laughed. yeah america takes care of its people's comfort...

then we arrived. i saw a parking lot in front of some 3-4-storeyed apartment block. to the left of it there were some trees and as i found out later it was the park - it started right there. at first Michael unlocked the front door of the whole block (all people living in that apartment block have a key to that door). then we went up one set of stairs and there was a looooooong corridor with a carpet. looked like a hotel corridor at first :D then Michael unlocked the door.. and let me in.

we were at home.