Friday, June 15, 2012

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Friday, June 8th , 2012 Friday, June 8th, was the beginning of my journey home, to Minnewaukan, ND. A few hiccups along the way, including a giant thunderstorm over Miami, caused me to have my flight home delayed slightly in Miami. But the airline was nice enough to put me up in a nice hotel for the night. The real story though, is not my night in Sin City (which involved me watching the Mummy II on cable and re-packing my suitcase… definitely a night for the books), the real story is the way that people treated me along every point in my destination. Getting on the plane in Recife, everyone was quick to the point, probably due to a language barrier and the size of the airport. In Miami, everything was rushed and I found myself asking multiple different people the same questions because the first person had barely had time to properly explain directions to me. Other than the waiter at the hotel restaurant, people did not seem very nice at all. In Chicago everyone seemed a little nicer than they had in Miami and Recife, but they were all still pretty quick to the point. But when I arrived in Minneapolis, I had felt a little more at home. There were a couple of people who looked like I could have known them (a first in weeks) and people seemed to actually take a little bit of time to talk to me. And here’s where the real change in people’s attitudes came in, my flight from Minneapolis to Devils Lake (my last flight). These were the North Dakota nice people that I have known my entire life. The man in the seat in front of me joked with me about the flight and offered me a snack which I gladly accepted since I had my card stolen in Miami and couldn’t afford snacks. At the mention of this tragedy, everyone in my section of our small plane turned to console me and make sure that I had gone through all of the necessary precautions to having the card canceled. The people on that plane easily reminded me of people I knew back home and I could have sworn the woman in front of me was twin of step-grandmother. As much as I have learned from my travels abroad, and all of the criticisms that we all had at one point in time or another for our homes, there is something amazing about home when you get there. For me it was that feeling of belonging and of kindness. It was that small joke that you can share with a stranger. It’s when you get off of that tiny Beechcraft in little Devil Lake ND and have your little sisters hug you so hard that you think they might have broken a rib. Or getting your favorite Knoephla soup at the Old Main CafĂ© immediately. As much as I love the feeling of flying to a new destination, of new cultures and cuisines, of new people and new friends, I love coming home to my family and my little state of North Dakota. Beth

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