America = Magic!

Hey there, America!  You're looking good.

I'm in New York waiting for my flight to LA and I'm just so excited to be around people who are speaking English that I don't even mind that in the last 38 hours I have gotten just 1 wee hour of sleep or that I still have a 2 hour wait and a 6 hour flight and a 1 hour drive to get to my bed.

When we landed I texted Katie with the exciting news that I was back in America and she called right away and I busted into a very soulful rendition of "America, the Beautiful."  Much to the delight of my fellow passengers.  Who were fantastic, by the way.  I somehow didn't have a seat assigned on my Rome to NY flight (which was a huge joke, but I'm over it) so I was essentially put onto the stand-by list and ended up on the last row of the plane with Maureen and Al, this 60-something couple from Long Island who just finished up a Mediterranean cruise.  They were hysterical.  They had the best accents and they told me all about their kids and their world travels and anytime I would say something to Maureen that was remotely funny she would wake Al up and tell him and they would both laugh and laugh.  I mentioned to them that I was going to have to declare bringing in dates to the country and Maureen suggested that I try to smuggle them in and just have Thanksgiving with them if I am detained over night.  Speaking of those dates, I did get them through because I convinced the agricultural inspector that they were picked 3 weeks ago and thus, not technically fresh, thus making them dried fruit, which is acceptable to bring in the country.  And he made a reference to Star Wars and I told him I went to the Tatooine set and suddenly we were best friends.  And I may have shimmied somewhere in there.  Because I was just so happy.  I suppose we'll never know what was the clincher.

There's a girl eating a Wendy's cheeseburger sitting next to me and my spell checker is no longer in Arabic and I just bought an US Weekly.  America = Magic!