Out of America

OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN – America did not want to let go of me. So it seemed.
At the Philadelphia International Airport, Northwest Flight 1785 came 30 minutes late; and when fully boarded for Detroit, was held at the taxiway for two hours. Amid the sweltering heat, the passengers were told that a weather turbulence somewhere along the route had to be waited out on ground.
So to Detroit-Wayne County International Airport we flew in, over three hours late; our connecting flight to Nagoya onto Manila was by then long gone.
A frantic scramble for the next flight ensued. We ran the whole breadth of the airport to look for the Northwest representative only to find that there were no other flights to Japan or the Philippines for the day.
By obligation, Northwest billeted us at nearby Hilton for the night – in a suite, provided us food vouchers for dinner, breakfast and lunch, and compensatory 500 miles credit to our World Perks Mileage Program for the inconvenience. NWA does care for its customers.
Stressed by the missed flight and running very low on resources, the wife and I preferred to hit the sack early rather than go on a Motown night-out. For the uninitiated, it was Detroit that gave birth to that distinctive sound that took its moniker, Motor Town, albeit in syllabically-contracted Afro-American speak.
A restful night opened to a bright new day and after going through rigorous security checks anew, we boarded NW Flight 11 to Tokyo’s Narita Airport. And here I am now pounding the old reliable hybrid laptop for this piece, the wife snoring by my side, light having given way to dark past the international dateline.
Impressions of America come out the deep recesses of the mind, not so randomly. Like LSS, that’s last-song syndrome after a musical or an opera, the most recent events flood the memory first, then ebb as the more pleasant ones flow in torrents.
The very stringent security checks – shoes, jackets, cellphones dumped into bins, laptops out of their bags, through x-ray machines; no liquids or gels in carry-on luggage, not even toothpaste or deodorant – have given a new meaning to the “travel light” advisory. Much to the dismay of Filipino travelers who, in addition to their bulky balikbayan boxes, stuff their carry-alls to bursting point with just about everything they could get their hands on for pasalubong home. With Bath and Body Works and Victoria’s Secret body sprays and lotions as chic favorites. What used to be carried in totes and rollers are now stowed in boxes and heavy luggage.
The new security schemes have begun to impact on the airline industry.
Increase in the volume of check-in luggage necessitated increase in manpower requirement, thus added labor costs. Haulers have started asking for greater health insurance coverage with the additional poundage they have to bear, yet another cost added. Man-hours required to load and off-load the baggage proportionately increased too, and that also costs a lot of money to the carriers.
Expect now higher airfares? Why should I be bothered? I am still in euphoria over this visit to America.
Fantasticks on Broadway, the Boston Pops and Rockapella at Mann Music Center in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, New York’s Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum and Museum of Natural History and the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art make a most enlightening cultural feast lapped up most pleasantly, nay, devoured most avariciously. With the Grounds of Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey and Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania serving as a delightful dessert.
The good Apu Ceto will most certainly love this. His prodigal son went to Mass in just about every major city he visited: at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York; St. Dominic’s Church in D.C; Shrines of the Miraculous Medal and St. Jude, and Mary Mother of the Redeemer Church in Philadelphia; Mary of the Angels Church in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania; St. Anne of the Sunset Church in San Francisco, and St. Philomena’s Church and the Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in LA. I’ve never gone to Mass this much since I left the seminary aeons ago.
Then there were the “must” sights to quench the tourist thirst: Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in the City of Brotherly Love; Ground Zero, Central Park, Liberty and Ellis Islands, Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Rockefeller Center in the Big Apple; Universal Studios and Disneyland in Tinseltown; Sea World in San Diego; the Golden Gate, Lombard Street and Fisherman’s Wharf in the City by the Bay; and mighty, awe-inspiring Niagara Falls at the Canadian border.
This trip to America is truly a humongous – NO, a holistic socio, cultural and spiritual journey made even more wholesome by our re-bonding with the family and friends we came to visit.
We have come from home. And we are now at home.