Coming to America

Home feels decrepit like a 3rd world country. It started at the airport,
with our compatriots loudly complaining about a long line that states-bound
passengers were corralled into. Then, decrepit JFK with its flickering
lights, stern warnings, angry workers and $6 luggage carts (and if we asked
for a baby stroller like they have elsewhere, they would probably have
laughed in our faces). In Zurich and Reykjavik, there is a line drawn
around the luggage carousel that everyone quietly stands behind and steps
across when their piece needs to be picked up, making the whole process
efficient and unstressful. People here shove each other aside to even see
what’s on it. Kind of like the rest of our life here.
Made a mistake of taking a (disgusting and sticky) yellow cab instead of
Lyft, and trusting that the driver would know how to go if I told him the
general route and destination. He ended up losing himself in Queens and
asking us to extricate him with Google Maps and direct him all the way
home. Apparently he’s never heard of an American system called GPS. In the
process, he drove like a maniac, despite knowing that he is carrying a baby
without a child seat. Though everyone else was super aggressive, too, after
rule-following Swiss, French and Icelanders, all topping up with a
motorbike colliding with us from behind as he tried to squeeze between the
cars at speed, miraculously staying upright and continuing to tear up the
street.
The streets were all broken up and the buildings poor. Over it all, a
church, with a big sign: PRAY IS THE ONLY WAY.