“Transport of mail, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures-in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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I returned to New York, or rather Newark, on Tuesday, August 30. Exactly 89 days after I arrived in England to start my journey. My flight left Paris at 8:30PM, and I tried not to cry like my Mom told me she had when she left Paris after living there for a few months after college.
The flight was a pleasant budget air experience that landed in Newark Airport just before midnight.
I knew this would be a new kind of foray into the unknown. I have a great relationship with the public transportation from JFK- I used it for a few years to get from the Rockaways to South Africa or the Hamptons, but always avoided Newark. Some mix of my travels and a significant savings on airfare emboldened me to this new choice- Newark International Airport.
I was greeted with an X on my global entry receipt for the first time, and waited in line behind a horse trader from Brewster, NY for the chance to explain to U.S. customs my pilgrimage.
When I got my final stamp- thank God- I started looking for signs again.
The first part of the train that promised a ride to Penn Station in New York, only made it so far as Penn Station in Newark.
I looked around the platform, there was at least one familiar face, a girl with big glasses who had told me her harrowing experience with another new budget airline- Primera Air, flying from London while we waited for the train.
There were also many people sleeping near the platform, drinking out of bottles in paper bags, or dodging in and out of the halted train to New York, deciding what to do next.
I congregated with the girl with big glasses and two other Brooklyn types who were on my flight from Paris. We worked together to make a plan- our own Uberpool over the bridge. Everyone was kind and cool about sharing the cost and taking a road that got everyone home in time, and the driver, Daniel, was excellent.
It was nice to share the way on the way home.