Leaving America.

It is sort of scary how long I've lived in America. I would say that just six years ago - I still found America to be very alien, foreign, and sometimes downright confusing. But overtime, slowly and surely, through the course of regular life and also the generosity of very kind people who have shared their experiences and opened their lives and homes to me, I think I've sufficiently mastered the rather marketable skill of pretending to be a natural born American citizen.

Similarly, life in Taiwan, like the time and tide, waits for no man. I'd imagine much has changed in the last six years, and I suspect it is entirely possible that I could experience culture shock at "home," and I wonder how long it would take for me to feel comfortable again.

But anyway - enough with my random musings!

I took the Port Authority bus to Pittsburgh International Airport, a perfectly nice airport that is unfortunately too large for western Pennsylvania. The 28X bus was about 6 minutes early - which can really ruin the day for someone who is not familiar with the Port Authority's customary business practices and misses their bus and possibly their fight.

Did I mention waiting for the bus made me really cold?

The bus was pretty fun. A young fella who was probably drunk got on the bus and tried to avoid the bus fare. The bus driver called him out on it and the young fella pays - but then began to curse up a storm. Then he sat down and whipped out a new smartphone (I think it was even HTC! Yay Taiwan represent!)

Anyway - so he made the bus really awkward because there was toddlers going to the airport and this smuck was saying things that would make a sailor blush. But karma is a bitch - and the young fella forgot his charger on the bus. I guess I could have said something to him - but I swear everything happened so quickly ;)

Lonely and sad micro-USB charger.

Once we got to the airport - I got up and grabbed the lost charger and handed it to the bus driver.

"I believe that young fella who was giving you a hard time left his."

*bus driver and I share a laugh*

So anyhoo - I proceeded to the bag drop area, went through security and found my gate nearly two hours ahead of schedule.

There were not a lot of people, so it was particularly odd when this (pictured below) showed up at the gate, sort of eyed everyone up, then sat down next to this Asian girl. He then kept looking at her, put his arm on the back of the seat over to try and start a conversation, and was generally quite creepy.

Creeper. He was sort of large. Thankfully he bought two seats so no one would have to sit under his arm.

But his creepiness was to my benefit because it provided amusement while we waited for our flight to Detroit   to arrive in Pittsburgh. It was a good distraction because I was a tad bit anxious at this point as I only had a little over an hour between my flight from Pittsburgh to Detroit and the connecting flight from Detroit to Tokyo.

The little plane finally arrived, and by the time we started boarding after a torturous wait for the passengers to deplane, we were thirty minutes past our scheduled departure time. Once we finally we on board - we then taxied around on the tarmac until we got to the deicing station (as it had started to snow rather heavily).

The plane landed after we had been scheduled to board.

HURRY! 

By the time we had departed, we were over an hour late and I resigned to the possibility that I would miss the flight from Detroit to Tokyo.

But I think the pilot maintained a higher cruising speed and managed to get us there with only a half hour delay. We deplaned just as my next connecting flight began boarding, so I made a mad dash from one terminal building to the other, weaving through the crowd and running up the stairs to pass people on escalators. Thankfully I made it for the flight!

Good bye America! I'll miss you!

But I'm not sad I'm leaving behind your weather.