8. 'In the Air': From Menorca to Cincinnati

Menorca – Granada – Barcelona – Chicago – Cincinnati

It seemed like the moment to leave would never come, and boy did it come — twice over, no less. And so, if on July 29 I was leaving my life in Menorca behind to pass briefly through Granada and say goodbye to my parents, on August 2 I was leaving one continent to begin a life on another. ‘Casi ná‘ — ‘no big deal’ — as we say back in ‘Graná’.

The American adventure began on Granada soil itself. I only hoped that the day ahead of me wouldn't turn into a new “Odyssey,” where the ships and sirens would now be planes and police officers, airports and waits, customs checkpoints and the occasional scare. And yet I was feeling quite calm. As long as the flight out of Granada left without delay, all the pieces would fall one after another like a game of “jenga.” Let's just say that if there was a good beginning there had to be a good ending — but in Cincinnati, please.

if there was a good beginning there had to be a good ending

The plane to Barcelona left on time, and on time it landed at El Prat. Backpack over my shoulder and suitcases in hand, I headed for the airport exit. I had arranged to meet a certain Álvaro there to exchange some euros for dollars. I had met this guy just that summer, on vacation, on a beach in Menorca. He and his girlfriend had recently returned after spending two years in the state of Rhode Island. As it happened, he had brought back some American cash, and so chance provided the perfect contact for getting hold of the new currency. I didn't want to go through the bloodsucking commissions charged by the banks or the currency exchange offices located right in the airport terminals. This way, the two of us had ourselves a win-win: he got his euros back and I got some dollars. “For a Fistful of Dollars” — that's what the scene could have been called. I exchanged the dollar at 0.91 euros, as it stood that day; though it had already started to climb, partly, I believe, thanks to the profits of senseless wars like the one between Russia and Ukraine. We had a coffee and the young man walked me to the United check-in counter. Right there we said our goodbyes. In that same line I remember running into a sizable crew of Spanish guys who, judging by their comments and their outfits, worked in race car maintenance. We were all headed for Chicago, and from there I would catch another flight to Cincinnati. It was the first time my papers would be put to the test. The ground staff checked that both my visa and my DS-2019 document were in order, so I got my boarding passes and headed for the security checkpoint. After that I ended up in an elevator and emerged at the very top of the terminal. It was like the airport's box seats, except I felt as if I were at the top of a space shuttle bound for another planet — and never was that more fitting.

The moment I set foot on the great Boeing 737 I began to feel detached from my former reality: nothing but foreign faces, everyone speaking English, no one raising their voice, and everything changing at a dizzying speed. The first-class seats impressed me: spacious armchairs reclined like lounge chairs, set apart from the rest, with a big personal television, a proper armrest, a little table lamp, and a nice blanket with a pillow. They looked like small hotel suites. All they were missing was a good magazine of crosswords and sudokus, I mused. Taken all together, they offered the optimal conditions for a nine-hour flight — though as for paying the difference, good luck with that.

on the great Boeing 737 I began to feel detached from my former reality: nothing but foreign faces, everyone speaking English, no one raising their voice, everything changing at a dizzying speed.

The flight went by pleasantly. I slept little, for I was quickly spellbound by the magic of one of the most beautiful documentaries I have ever seen. I'm talking about the sublime Ennio Morricone and his documentary “Ennio: The Maestro.” Through it I came to understand once again the vital contribution music makes to film. It is, in fact, a language that communicates as much as — I would even dare say more than — words themselves. Without his innovative intros of harmonica, flute, trumpet, piano with soprano voices and all his other arrangements, cinema would never have become what it is. Who doesn't instantly recognize that unmistakable boing, bing, boing of “A Fistful of Dollars,” a sublime work of the Spaghetti Western — not to go on about the endless list of all his other soundtracks and musical pieces.

We took off punctually from Barcelona at 3:00 in the afternoon and landed in Chicago at 6:00 in the evening, U.S. time. It felt as though we had traveled through time — and backward, at that: only three hours had passed on my watch, while my body had been through nine. It was still daylight. I began to feel strange and out of sync, displaced in a new space and time that were now becoming my new coordinates, my new reality.

I slept little, for I was quickly spellbound by the magic of one of the most beautiful documentaries I have ever seen. I'm talking about the sublime Ennio Morricone and his documentary “Ennio: The Maestro.”

In the photo below: arriving in Chicago at 11:58 p.m. Spanish mainland time when here, in the United States, it was daytime again. The yellow color wasn't pollution but the tint of the plane's transoceanic window.

At customs in the Chicago airport the show began: I had my first run-in with a blonde police officer whose face was not exactly friendly — she looked more like your typical sergeant. She started grilling me with nitpicky questions: what was I coming for, why, and other whims of hers. Between my nerves, her American accent, the obstacle of the plexiglass screen that did nothing but muffle her words even further, and on top of it all my head still half 'loopy' from the trip, nothing was helping me decipher her verbal volleys with my increasingly off-target answers. You should have seen me there, lit up like a red lantern, with pleading little eyes that said “let me through, miss, I've got all my papers in order and I've come here to teach you all Spanish, no less.” At last she halted her barrage and I was allowed to continue. The whole thing struck me as a mere game of questions meant to overwhelm me further and detect who knows what.

However, the string of frights and near-faintings had only just begun. The whole thing was starting to look like the release of a new video game: “Survive the Airport.” Because the next challenge stood a mere twenty meters from my previous trial. And it was another police officer, but this time as big as a wardrobe. He was shouting at everyone about something I couldn't quite understand and which, as it turned out, I was already carrying in my hand. So off I went, walking toward him as if none of it had anything to do with me, and suddenly his shouts were most definitely directed at me. At that moment, having not yet recovered from the previous episode, I began to feel my heart climb up into my throat, and I could already picture myself starring in one of those famous customs-inspection episodes where they take you to a room and search you down to the brand of your underwear. Thank goodness he pointed at the hand in which I was carrying the form they hand you when you get off the plane, the one where you pledge not to engage in any criminal or illegal activity. I gave it to him and moved on. Okay, one police officer down, I thought. I didn't even have any saliva left to swallow.

I could already picture myself starring in one of those famous customs-inspection episodes

And since these things never come in twos without threes, nor in threes without fours, it so happened that some fifty meters farther on I saw a long line of people, and there I planted myself. Mistake — I should have kept walking toward Terminal 1. But of course, how was I supposed to know at the time. I was starting to feel somewhere between Alfredo Landa and Paco Martínez Soria with my ten-kilo suitcase and the backpack over my shoulder. All I was missing was the beret and the chorizo sandwich wrapped in newspaper under my arm. Shortly after taking my place in said line, a ground agent with African American features came up to me asking for my boarding passes, and once I showed them to her she told me to retrace my steps because I hadn't done the pick up — that is, collected my luggage. I couldn't understand why the airline wasn't taking care of it, since this was only a layover. My state of confusion and irritation was becoming tachycardic. But the real tachycardia hit when she sent me back to visit my friend, the 'police officer as big as a wardrobe,' to ask whether he would let me retrieve my 25-kilo suitcase. The situation was by now preposterous, grotesque, Dalí-esque. My head was seconds away from short-circuiting. I went to see him like a man going off to remove a wasps' nest. Only my legs were pulling me along. And to make headway, I had to swim against a current of hundreds of passengers streaming toward me along the very path I myself had walked minutes earlier. Dodging them as best I could, I managed to reach the officer, and upon seeing me again his brow furrowed even tighter, producing a brand-new wrinkle I had never seen before: I could already see myself in a holding cell — for being a greenhorn. Apparently this guy supervised the area where travelers collected their bags, and obviously he did not let me through. I began to feel like a spinning top, like a pinball, and once again I went back to talk to the African American agent. By this point I understood nothing. She photographed my luggage receipts and this time did send me to the floor above to catch a small train that would take me to Terminal 1, from which my next flight would depart. During the short ride on that mini-train, I traveled with my heart practically beating in my hand, wondering what sort of fate my poor suitcase might have met — which, to make matters worse, was my mother's — and asking myself whether I would ever see it again. I tried to put mental self-control into practice, and with the help of my breathing I told myself: everything is going to be fine, George, everything is going to work out.

I was starting to feel somewhere between Alfredo Landa and Paco Martínez Soria with my ten-kilo suitcase and the backpack over my shoulder. All I was missing was the beret and the chorizo sandwich wrapped in newspaper under my arm.

No sooner had I stepped off the train car and started down some escalators toward the T1 checkpoints than I nearly went tumbling down the steps — all because a red-haired kid pushed me 'by accident' from behind while trying to make more room between himself and his little Spiderman suitcase. Luckily his shove only tipped me slightly forward, but I came this close to losing my balance, falling headlong, and setting off a domino effect, with people rolling in an avalanche all the way down the escalator. What a scene that would have been, good grief. What a scare.

I came this close to losing my balance, falling headlong, and setting off a domino effect, with people rolling in an avalanche all the way down the escalator.

Upon arriving safe and sound at the new floor of T1, I immediately asked another ground agent — Indian, I think, judging by his features — whether I needed to collect my suitcase somewhere. I showed him my boarding passes and he told me it wasn't necessary, since the airline took care of it. In that moment I was the happiest guy in the whole airport, and consequently I very nearly smothered the poor fellow in kisses. Not having to collect your bags made complete sense! Maybe the previous agent got confused and led me astray. Or I misunderstood her and led myself astray. The point is that that entire half hour of mental cardiac arrest, which I lived through as if it were hours of airport detention, had been entirely in vain — conjured up by nerves and, in part, by my rusty English. 

I was the happiest guy in the whole airport, and consequently I very nearly smothered the poor fellow in kisses.

I was dying to reach the boarding area and collapse into one of the seats to rest at last, if only a little, after all that commotion. I just had to make sure not to fall asleep and to wait for my next and final flight. This new lounge, café included, was fairly quiet and removed from the bustle and flow of the other passengers, so an immense sense of peace and well-being slowly began to wash over me. I had almost made it; I was just one plane away from my final destination. However, the exhaustion of that long day was beginning to take its toll. So I pulled a notebook out of my backpack and began writing the summary of that winding day that was about to come to a close. I could hardly believe it, honestly. As I wrote, my eyes fought both to stay focused on what I was putting down on the page and to keep my eyelids wide open.

I was just one plane away from my final destination.

Final screen of what turned out to be one thorny video game: “Survive the Airport.”

The flight to Cincinnati left on time, at 9:35 p.m., and we arrived at almost midnight. Inside the aircraft, I remember, it was quite cold, and the plane was nearly empty. Thank goodness I had kept the blanket they gave me on the previous flight, and I managed to sleep a bit. The only thing I wanted was to get there.

And yet what better welcome could I have than living through the last great scare of the day — or of the night, by then. This time it wasn't police officers I would run into, no. It was simply that I couldn't find a vehicle to get me out of the airport and take me to the hotel in Newport. There were no more buses, and no taxis either. The only way was to make a booking with the private taxi service Uber through the mobile app. But here's the punch line: having a Spanish phone number with no roaming service, I had no Internet access, which meant I couldn't download the app, much less register to request an Uber. Meanwhile, I asked for help at the information desk and they couldn't even give me the airport wifi. They told me to go straight to the Uber pickup station and try my luck, but I was almost certain that without a booking made in advance, no driver would want to take me. I had never used the service before. For heaven's sake, long live technology! I exclaimed inwardly. I felt so alone and forgotten in that moment that I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie “The Terminal.”

Some teachers I had contacted before coming couldn't pick me up because of how late it was. Where was the empathy? Honestly, even the Kentucky department of education could have sent me an official car — red carpet included. After all, I was coming to help them with Spanish! Clearly I was tired, hungry, and sleepy — the three basic ingredients for going off like fireworks. However, the thrill of having arrived safe and sound after everything I'd been through helped me not to lose my temper and to keep my composure. So how did it all get resolved? Because things always end up working out, right? — one way or the other. Well, once again I pulled energy out of thin air and, dragging my heavy suitcases, headed outside to the Uber pickup point. When I stepped out, I found only two black cars that looked every bit like vehicles of said service. I spoke with one of the two drivers parked there, and after I explained my trouble registering in the app, he sent me over to the driver next to him. He turned out to be a young Moroccan man who kindly agreed to take me to the hotel, no fuss at all. The little joke cost me about forty dollars which, considering the situation it got me out of, I handed over with more pleasure than sarcasm. He dropped me off right at the door of the Lafayette hotel in Newport.

View of the Lafayette hotel in the background, the night I arrived.

At the front desk my reservation was already waiting: room 222 — three little ducks in a row. And happy as a duck is exactly how I felt upon seeing how spacious the room was, how comfortable, and how nice and cool it was in there. A coolness that wasted no time in taking me by the hand toward that long-awaited sleep.

– Next post (Saturday, December 30, 2023): Kentukiana 3: ‘Teaching Spanish in a Kentuckiana Classroom’:

– Chronicle 9 (January 20, 2024): ‘On the Ground‘ (Part I): Serendipities

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