Stuck At Customs: My Return To The Motherland 19.2.14

My arrival back to the motherland has been long and arduous; starting with a 3am start at Heathrow for the first of my flights to Frankfurt. Needless to say, I hadn’t slept more than about an hour but it was adrenaline keeping me going. When that wore off I took the opportunity to charge all of my already fully charged gadgets at the airport merely because they had plugs there; such excitment charging your phone at an unfamiliar place. Unfortunately the only food we got on the flight there was yoghurt. Anyone that knows me knows I’m scared of yoghurt. It has a horrible consistency, is normally a rank colour and shouldn’t be allowed to exist. I can’t touch it, look at it, eat it or even think about it without having a mild panic attack. Needless to say I had to control myself because panic attacks don’t tend to go down too well on planes. Something about someone thrashing and screaming in a confined metal box 3000 feet in the air.

Thankfully it was handed to me in a napkin so no touching of the offending article was necessary.

When I arrived in Frankfurt I had to go through security again to get to my gate. My bag was picked out to be searched. The security guard fondled my stock of cereal bars for a bit and then let me go. I like to think he didn’t have a proper search due to my very aryan looks. Germans don’t wanna mess with that. I found a 5 euro note in my purse, but somehow still felt the need to ask the lady at McDs if I could use that here. She was like uuuuuh yeah, it’s a euro. Except I didn’t understand what she said because I don’t speak German, so I took her mocking eyes to mean yes.

The next flight was longer than the 1^st but I slept for most of it; awaking only when they bought the drinks carriage round. I had a glass of wine, and then another one when they came round again with the tea and coffee. Not as generous as BA where they give you a whole bottle to enjoy, but none the less it sent me right back to sleep. Kinda disappointed I didn’t get any on my 1^st flight. When I asked the guy then what drinks he had, he most certainly didn’t offer any wine. Maybe he thought I was too young, or maybe he thought 6am is too early for it. Either way, he’d be soo totes wrong.

Arriving to the airport was so much less stressful than last semester when I had no idea what was going on. I was straight through customs, and they clearly have no idea what they’re doing either. I have quite a typical Russian name and it’s spelt differently on both visas I have. What are this Russki visa office? My 1^st visa was right there in my passport; you probably could’ve photocopied it and just changed the dates. The whole journey to where I’m living was quite easy and I’ve missed this country where you can’t walk 2 steps without a man offering to help you with your stuff; although a few times it probably could’ve been confused for an almost mugging of my cases.

My room is little, but cute, and also a library. Guess who doesn’t even have to now leave her room for YA project research?! For 9000r a month, there is no going wrong. The host family live here; apparently in the kitchen. I’ve been here 4 days and the 7 year old blonde kid has been sat in the kitchen staring at his laptop almost every time I’ve walked through. Not sure he goes to school. After about midnight they must send him off to bed and the father takes up stag duty of the kitchen. Either that or the little boy morphes into a man at night. I’ve never seen them in the same room together, thereby making this the prevalent theory.

Classes are very different to Petrozavodsk. We have Fridays off and a late start Monday but 10-3:20 Tues and Wed. Us international lot have taken up residence loitering around the coffee machine at lunchtime. We went for a few getting to know you drinks last night with some of the Benedict Language School lot and ended up at some cool little bar playing music circa 2001. We’re talking Jennifer Lopez, bit of N’Sync, the ever-classic Bad Touch. Loving life. Except for the slush falling from the sky into my face no matter what direction I walk in.