Imports

Imports

Unpublished work (c) 1991, Lisa Page Weil
All rights reserved.          


Before I arrived, I stopped in the city.  I had a long wait.  The day passed as I looked out of the large windows.  Six hours.  I looked at the Christmas displays.  Christmas toys and postcards.  Some decorations were up, but the mood was very subdued.  I haven't been to see Gray in a long time; maybe in over ten years.  I spent my time in the country.  I'd passed through town; stopped for a few days; seen Gray en route to other destinations.  But I hadn't talked too much, or tried to buy anything.  I found that the little money I'd bought disappeared on small purchases.  The prices were disproportionate.  But at the newsstand with the other tourists, I thought that the prices might have been high, anyway. The station had a television set in a case by the window, and many passengers waiting to leave sat and watched the news and some comedy shows.  A kiosk sold decorative cards and postcards.  The building had a few shops for passengers who were only transferring.

It was late when I walked out to the turnpike.  I went into the store to get some things I forgot to pack, and right outside the store were two kids with nothing else to do.  Right outside of the store.  I asked them where I could find a drugstore.  "There's none in this mall," they said.  "You'd have to go down the street."  I walked out and went to the bank.  Called another cab.  I didn't see the drugstore.  It was right across the street.

It took a long time for the cab to arrive, and when it did; I saw that it was an old car, like the ones they sold in the sixties.  A large old car with an oldish sign on the top of it with the company name and logo.

The driver couldn't believe I'd called a cab just to take me to the next stop light.  He drove me to the store and waited outside while I went in to buy a few odds and ends.

The driver stayed in the car while I got out.  He said, "I'll be waiting here by the door, but if you don't see me, I'll have parked in the lot."  Then I opened the door and walked to the store.  The metal and glass door pushed open, and I found myself staring at a cluttered interior.  Not all of the items I needed were in the same places in the store. In fact, not all of the merchandise in each department was racked together.

I couldn't find the brands I was looking for at first, but eventually I saw familiar names along the shelves and walls.

Nail clippers.  I hadn't been able to find one in my suitcase.  My fingernails were ragged and toenails too long. 

I left my hair as it was, but I may have bought a comb.  It had never looked so unevenly dark.

My winter coat was spattered with liquid of some sort.  It had mud on it.  My suitcases were filled with clothing.  My headband was worn.  The knees to ankles of my jeans and the leather of my purse and shoes had been ruined beyond use.
Along the walls of the apartment, along the windows and on the bed, all of my clothing and papers were drenched with water, and a dummy set of notebooks had been soaked through.
It had been sitting on the floor in the middle of a stack of newspapers.

The driver had been waiting for me for a long time.  It must have been five or ten minutes by now; so I picked up a few packages of chewing gum, some old caramels in a bag, and some candy bars.  That should have lasted for a day or two, but I couldn't be sure.  Then I went out to look for the cab.  I went through the parking lot a few times before I saw it behind a car at the entranceway.  I got back in and headed back.  I had a few days to recover from lack of sleep, and I thought I'd move while I was alert.  I called another cab, and I left the keys to my room at reception.

As I left, I looked out at the road and all of the houses and other buildings along the side of it; another hotel.

I checked in for a few days and had another newspaper and coffee at reception.
Then I went up to put all of my baggage in the room.  Another spacious room, but I was too tired to watch television.
I turned it on for a few minutes; then off.
The newspaper was for the weekend.
I didn't eat too much.  I mostly slept, but not soundly.  Just for periods of time.
On Sunday, I called another taxi.  He drove me over to a sundry store, where I bought the Sunday Times; that would take a day to read; that and more candy bars.

Then back to my room.  The place really looked strange to me.  It took a week to remember what life in it was like.  Or had been like for me.
All the houses all over the place; that and lawns.  Maybe maintained, but not stringently maintained.  Many wood frame houses.  People still owned property.  They still lived in houses there.
The town the bus company had sent me to was too polluted for me to have slept there, so I'd just stayed on the bus.  The bus driver told me where I could find hotels.  Many of the towns had been too small to have hotels, or they weren't ones that I could see from the turnpike.

I hadn't been back for almost five years.  Five years in July.
The last time I was in the U.S. I went to New York to see Gray.
I'd only been there for a short time, and I saw the inside of the airport, a luxurious hotel interior, and the airport shops.  We were so far outside of the city, that I couldn't see a skyline.  Then back to study overseas.  All in foreign languages.  I'd learned a few of them well enough.

When I called the taxi to leave the hotel, I asked him how much the fare was to the law school.  He told me it would cost me twenty-two dollars to get there.  I only had eighteen dollars in U.S. currency.  I'd changed money in Europe, but not all of the currency I carried was in dollars.  I still had German money.
Reception told me to take the train; it was only two or three dollars to get there.  Taxi to station.  I read in the paper that more students had come in over the weekend.  The Monday column.  People along the train route noticed it too, some mentioned it; but they seemed surprised.

The conductor called a porter for me at the station.  He was to show up for my bags; they would have been hard to carry. He drove over the train tracks in a golf cart.  When he got out, he loaded up all of my baggage, and we took off; cruising along the railroad tracks so fast that I thought I'd fall out.  We almost lost the baggage when we drove over the train tracks.  Then to the entrance hallway.  He left me at the door after finding me a cab.  After all of the tips and fares, I only had enough dollars to get to the law school.  Then a few dimes and maybe a dollar or two to call banks with.  This was the only big enough town to exchange foreign currency in.  The cab pulled up to the law school.  And the driver put all of my baggage on the front steps.  I paid.  Then went inside.  I was early.  So early that the students hadn't arrived yet for their first lectures.  The professors weren't in their offices; the administrators were just arriving.  Maybe eight a.m.  I hadn't adjusted to the time.

At around eight thirty, I started calling banks.  The large banks in town wouldn't change money for me without my having an account with them.  At least that's what they told me on the phone.

I only had my passport and some German marks.

People were arriving for class, and as I watched the students, I thought about law school; the faculty usually showed up early, but they really didn't have to be there until class.

At five to nine, I went to see the dean.  I introduced myself and explained that I had to change money to continue my travels in the U.S.  The dean decided to help me by calling his bank in town and asking them to take the German currency that I'd brought with me that day and change it to dollars.  He waited for the bank managers in charge of the exchanges there, and they said they'd call him back.

I sat out with the secretary and waited for the bank to call.  He talked to someone in a branch office, and they told him that they'd arrange to have their office make the transaction.
I thanked the dean and left his office.

All of my baggage was still in the law school corrider, right inside the entrance.  I left the baggage and headed out in the direction I'd been told led to the bank.  After walking a few blocks, across the campus, I arrived at the street leading to the bank, and I thought, "This will take too long; maybe I could move my baggage into a safer place in the law school before I go to the bank."

I went back to the law school, and I moved all of my baggage into the room next to the doorway.  The people in the office said they'd make sure nothing happened to any of the baggage until I returned from the bank.

When I arrived at the bank, the manager exchanged the foreign currency immediately,.  The personnel were friendly, prompt, and polite to me; even though I looked worn from life in a foreign country; hours of travel; and days without a change of clothes.  I'd had some clothes dry cleaned here so that I could wear them in the U.S., but students in law school there don't wear jeans as often as here.

I don't have any university ties, and I'd never visited that school before; but the administration made quite an effort to assist me.

After I changed the currency, I returned to the dean's office and thanked the secretary.  I left a message.  Went back for my bags and went out to the next taxi I'd called.  While I'd been waiting at the law school; I'd quickly toured the building, visited the classrooms, and looked into the lounge.  The student lounge.  I didn't see the faculty lounge.
The taxi took me back to the train station.

At the train station, I found another porter, bought a ticket, and headed for the train.  I rode around a lot that day, but I thought a day or two of travel would break up the monotony of all of the hotel rooms.

I hadn't thought of buying postcards, yet, or of the souvenir pens; pins I could find before I returned to Europe.  I might have stayed for awhile, but all of those decisions were remote from the rails, and the sound of the train.
The fall foliage had already mostly fallen off of the trees, but it was still warm.
I noticed that I no longer had company  The people who were glued to me were gone.

That could have been a good thing by mid-November; but 1991 had been its own year, even for Europe.

I looked out to see the lights of the tower and a hotel.  Then I got out at the end of the line, and unloaded all of the baggage to the side of the road.  It wasn't late yet; but I felt as though it was.  Usually a town like this can be quiet, but most of the people know each other.

The road had signs that glowed from new paint along the storefronts.  A new coat of paint on that town, it gleamed in the darkness.  Maybe it was nine-thirty or ten o'clock; maybe earlier.  The town was deserted.  I went into the student center after leaving my belongings by a bench next to the inn.  When I saw the rows of mailboxes and the table with newsletters and free papers, I knew I could drag my baggage out of the cold and out of a walkway.

I walked around the post office to read the notices on the notice board.  The bulletin boards, and the ride boards.  Nothing in town.  A few students walked through, but not too many people were around.  It was during the week in the middle of a term, and hardly anyone was around.  I didn't know why that would be.  I left my baggage at the post office, and walked through the student center to the auditorium.  I looked in, I think there was a rehearsal.  I went over to the music department, but I didn't see anyone I knew.    I went over to a restaurant in town to see if the owner, an old friend of mine, was around.  He wasn't  My friends used to work with him, and we'd all often sit there to talk.  They had music sometimes, on Wednesdays.  Friends of ours played there.  I don't know whether they played there during my senior year or not.  The owner had opened a new restaurant across the street.  The town had been successful for him.  No one I knew was around.

I went back to the student center, and I couldn't find a phone book or directory to call hotels from.  The nearest ones I knew of were in other towns.  The inns in town were unreasonable choices for the amount of time.

I couldn't call without the phone book.  I went next door.  A student was lounging around in a desk chair, with nothing much to do.  I borrowed the phone book for long enough to look up a few numbers.  Then I left for the pay phone to make a few calls.  The inns I called had been either filled or closed for the winter, so I left the student center and walked towards town.

I could see the silhouettes of the buildings in the darkness.  I headed across the street.  A few students allowed me into their building, and said I could stay there for awhile.  They were much younger, but one of them had just met an old friend of mine a few weeks before, although I only heard about him after a few days.  I talked to a student for an hour; then the students disappeared to their rooms upstairs. I had the sitting room to myself. I looked up at all of the old photographs on the walls, graduation pictures.  The indirect lights never quite go out in that room.  Central heating keeps it warm.

I'd forgotten Gray and his cat, who'd lived in that house on the second floor.  He never got his synthesizer fixed.  After school, he'd played in a band.  He was pretty good.  I didn't know what he'd been up to, or what his girlfriend had been up to, but the students filled us in after I started talking to them.  I remembered that the band had stored their equipment in the basement, but I'd forgotten that it was Gray who had let them use the space.

So I had a place to stay.  I haven't seen Gray for almost five years. I might have seen him at my graduation.  But I sometimes write postcards.

I didn't know what Gray had been up to.  I told the students that I'd just recently arrived from Germany, that I hadn't been in the US or around for a long time, and that I'd be leaving soon.  They were just finishing up.

I went to sleep.  I could hear a few people walk in later that evening.  But I don't think I woke up.  I remember someone asking me who I was when they walked through, but I think that might have been the next day.

I was awake early.  Each evening at eight o'clock I fell asleep; but early in the morning in the U.S., it seemed much later for a long time.  I don't think I'd adjusted to the new time schedule during the short time that I stayed there.

Early morning, and I heard footsteps on the stairs, someone was going out.  I went upstairs.  A dog followed the student out.  The dog had been around the night before.  But it must have gone upstairs after wandering through the room. 

I walked downtown to buy the newspaper, the New York Times, and the I walked up to the lounge and looked out the window at the tower.  I sat and read the NYT on one of the chairs by couches and a piano.

I went outside to see what had been happening in town while I'd been away.  Not too much news, but more students were out in town by then.  I went to the bookstore.  Maybe I could find something to read for a few days.
A few days in town might not have been a bad idea after so many years away, but I couldn't visit the friends that I knew were around.

I wasn't in a hurry to travel again, but I knew I could always go back to a city, or visit a new one.  Once I'd talked to relatives, I knew I could meet them and either leave again or stay.  I started to plan to leave town.

By the end of the week, I still was waking up too early.  At one a.m., I awakened to find that I couldn't go back to sleep.  I got up, packed my suitcases, and went out into the hallway to find two students who couldn't sleep.  "What are you doing awake?," they asked.  "I already slept,"  I said. They weren't going to.  Maybe they'd just finished final papers.  "Do you want a piece of candy?," asked one.  "No," I answered.  I'd had too much of it earlier.  He was finishing up a bag of candy corn.  He left the bag on the counter behind him, and asked about what I'd done after college.  His friend told me about the news in town.

They would be finished soon.  I think they were tired of the quiet small town life.
They told me about some new videotapes they'd bought and started talking about performances at school.  They mostly listened to jazz; they said.  "Why did you choose this building?," they asked.  I looked at the student. "A friend lived here," I said.  "Oh.  He was just here a few weeks ago," the student told me. "I met him.  He was already out by the time I'd started, but sometimes he stops by."

The other student had seen him around, too.  I told them about his years as a college performer.  "I didn't even know he was a musician," the first student said.  "Or that he'd performed in college."  "He married," they added.  They didn't know whether that was important to me; he is younger than I am. "He had a girlfriend then," I said.  "I knew her, too."  "He married someone else."  One of the two had known his old girlfriend in school.  They'd seen them around together.

"Maybe he met his wife in graduate school," I said.  They hadn't known he'd gone to graduate school, either.

The students talked for awhile; then they started to get bored.  They wanted to know whether I wanted to see a videotape.  They had a television or VCR in the basement.  I said, "I'd like to see it.  I'd never seen those performances."  We all watched an hour's worth of television.  The students looked tired.  I don't think they'd slept earlier; then they went upstairs.  I think they were going to sleep through the day.  Their vacation must have just begun.

I went out to call a taxi.  It was early in the morning, but I had a day of travel ahead of me, and I didn't want to miss the bus.  I hoped that the taxi would show up.  The phone booth in the house smells like old wood, and the phonebook was on the floor.  A few numbers had been etched into the wall or written onto it with magic marker.  Not the number of the taxi company.

Everyone was out on the porch by the time the taxi arrived.  The driver and I loaded up the back of the station wagon, and we took off down the road after I'd left a note on the bulletin board.  I had over an hour before the bus was scheduled to leave Vermont, but I had to cross the river to get to the state border.  The interstate was open road at that hour.  Ten or fifteen minutes and I was in Vermont at the intersection.  The stoplight five hotels or so.  The parking lot where I'd left my car when I'd gone to Europe in 1987, when I'd given Gray the keys and he'd never driven it out of the lot; just left it out in the air all summer.  I'd returned for it that fall.  Then I'd gone back to the airport to return.

The bus depot was right behind the parking lot.  I'd never had the time to sit at the counter, but after I'd bought my ticket, I found that I had an extra half an hour before the bus was to leave.  I went in to the cafeteria and looked at the magazines along the wall.  I didn't see anything to read for the journey.  I picked up a few souvenirs of Vermont and went back out to the bus station.  I had only a few minutes to wait for the bus to arrive.  It was due.  Then it pulled into the station and parked.  I loaded the baggage and showed my ticket to the driver.  Then I got in.  The bus pulled out.  The next signs along the road were for Vermont, and I saw the covered bridge behind the trees at the side of the highway.  We passed the town without stopping.  As the bus headed toward Massachusetts, I thought about the souvenir stands I'd seen while traveling north.  The stations would probably have postcards, and maybe cheap tourist mementos of the cities or states.

I rode the bus to New York, the city, and it took almost eight hours to arrive, after stopping at all of the local stops.  I got off at more of them then I might have, because I wanted to find souvenirs at all of the main cities of the different states I traveled through.  Sometimes the bus would stop for a few minutes, and I thought I'd miss it or get on the wrong bus as I rushed in and out of the bus station.  On Thanksgiving Day, everything in Connecticut was closed.  In Massachusetts, the coffee shops and souvenir stands stayed open, but in Connecticut, I didn't think I'd be able to buy a postcard.  I arrived  with a copy of the bus schedule and nothing else.  The bus driver decided to take a coffee break, so he gave me five or ten minutes to run into the depot and see if I could find a souvenir stand.

The coffee shop was open.  So was a newsstand that sold candy bars, magazines and cigarettes.  In a corner, I saw a rack of postcards.  Some were postcards of Connecticut, but many were pictures of rural scenery.  About ten minutes drive from the bus depot to town.  By taxi.

The newsstand had a few views of cities and a map of the state; I bought a few copies quickly and went back outside to the bus.  The bus driver was just getting back from his coffee break; I probably couldn't go back to the store for extra postcards.  I didn't know whether I'd have to cross town in New York with my remaining ten or fifteen dollars; that would have cost me most of it; even by bus.  This was my last stop before New York City; but it's a few hours away.

I didn't even have time to buy a cup of coffee there.  The last cup of coffee I bought at the bus station had sugar in it.  I didn't ask for sugar with my coffee; it was already diluted into the coffee machine.  Coffee in the US could be either a small or large cup to go, in styrofoam.  It's strong but watery.

So I didn't buy any coffee there again.  Not after I'd had to throw that last one away.

I'd wait until I arrived in New York.

I arrived in New York after dark.  The bus drove to the station.

The taxi drove up to a stairway on a side street, and I looked up to see a lit doorway at the top of the stairs.  I'd never heard of my hotel. 
Through the door to reception, and I saw the New York Times in a newspaper rack and on a table in the lobby.  A metal bowl of red green and white peppermints was set on a table in front of the reception desk.

Christmas colors, then a reception greeting and the elevators.  I didn't notice, at first; that my room had a tile bowl of a balcony outside; and when I did notice a few days later, I found the door locked.  No one could go out onto the balcony, or the adjascent roof.  The roof was connected to the balcony, which seemed indented with its thick white walls; an old style from the beginning of the century.  New York started to took like New York again, and not the foreign city it had first appeared to be; with its neon lights, painted billboards, tall buildings, apartment complexes.  I could hear the swish of traffic in the streets; the air was warm, but it smelled like New York.  Humid, usually; and like too much traffic and stale pretzels.

The rest of my room was comfortable, but not unusual.  It didn't look like the hotels that I'd stayed in traveling north; the chains with identical rooms and air conditioning.  Large rooms, the rooms are spacious in the U.S.  Soap in the bathroom and morning cups of coffee in packages waiting to be opened.  Usually a television, sometimes a radio and a desk with writing paper and the number for reception.  The chains had the daily newspapers at reception; free copies for guests; with pictures and print and long gossip columns at the end.  Every day in New York, the New York Times was delivered to my room.

It ended up on the floor outside my door, but I got to page though it; sometimes before taking it down to the breakfast room to wait for my brother to meet me for breakfast.  The hotel had a buffet breakfast with muffins cereal milk fruit tea or coffee.  I don't know, maybe eggs, but I only had coffee, so I don't remember.

The guests wore casual New England style clothes; they looked as though they'd lived in small towns.  Old high school friends always seem just around the corner in New York, where I think some of their new offices are.

"The dry cleaning was going to take a long time in New York," I thought.  But I was told that I'd have everything back by the end of the day; the same day.  "Starch?" "Lightly."  "On hangers or boxed?"  "Boxed," I answered.  All of the shirts had to be repacked anyway.  Coats, blouses, jeans, boots, handbag, suitcases.

I needed another coat.  My coat should have been cleanable; it wasn't too old, but the buttons had fallen off of it anyway.  I found one in a compartment of my purse.  The down coat had been brand new.  I'd lost my gloves.

I hadn't brought any dress clothes for New York, because they'd all been soaked through with water in my room.  I doubted that all of them would be wearable.  Some of them could have been dry cleaned.

When I returned to my hotel late in the day, I found all of the dry cleaning on the bed.  Shirts in plastic bags with cardboard stiffening the backs and collars.  The other clothes were in plastic bags ready to pack.  The clothes smelled of floral soap.

I hadn't decided to buy another typewriter in New York, although I'd mentioned that I needed another one after mine had been stolen with my suitcase in Hamburg in April.  As I walked by a library, my brother said that we should look for new ones.  Electronic typewriters are much cheaper if you know where to shop there.  We walked through the streets in the center of town, stopping at many small shops.  I saw no typewriters that replaced my last one.  Another company had a typewriter on the market that rivaled the old one, but the keyboard is dissimilar, and the ribbon cartridges would have been hard to procure in Europe.  I really didn't want a different typewriter.  I'd rather have had the same old typewriter returned to me.  We bought nothing that day, but we compared prices.  I could save too much by picking up a replacement in New York.  Or I could handwrite for another year.

While we shopped, I looked around at the traffic and the people busy shopping for Christmas.  The Christmas season had just begun; and trees, lights, and storefronts were changing daily as the decorations went up. Dolls and scenes dressed in the styles of the times filled store windows.  Christmas shoppers were jostling each other through the entrance.  We went in; passed the counters with their red and green Christmas packages out in front.  We headed for the back of the store, toward the escalators.  The brass gleamed as we traveled up to the clothing department.  New sweaters and sweatshirts with Christmas appliques across their fronts were the first displays for the customers to see.  "They're only good for a day," explained my brother as I looked at the designs.  We walked by them.  "People would notice if you wore something like that more than once.  The designs this year are innovative, though."  My brother wanted to shop, I decided.  This was his Christmas shopping in New York this year.  He can buy most of the same clothing in town, but he likes to shop in New York.  He didn't want to go sightseeing with me.  He was going to visit all of his favorite New York stores.

"You were born in New York; we lived here.  You have to remember having seen it before."

We'd lived too far from this part of the city to visit it.  The neighborhoods were too far from most of the holiday sights.  Mark wanted to go to the museums.  I decided no museum this year.  We didn't buy anything; we left the store and went to look for typewriters.  As we walked through the busy sidewalks of the city; blocks and corners twisted through unfamiliar streets.  I'd been away for so long that I don't know where I am when I'm there.  When I visited from school; or from high school; even from college; I still knew my way around.

Not around the entire city, but around parts of it. 

Mark asked me whether I'd seen the arcade.  I'd never seen it.  It was new.  We walked down a street, and I saw a store filled with souvenirs of New York on my left.  Postcards, T-shirts, guidebooks in different languages.  We stopped and went in.  I didn't have anything that said New York all over it yet.  A few views of the city on postcards caught my attention at the entrance, and I thought about the tourist pens and pins I'd found along the way to the city.  Mom found a few lapel pins that said New York.  But the pens had views of the city in plastic coating or loud lettering; they would have clashed with the ones of Vermont I'd found at the bus stops.

We bought three cards and pins and left the store.  Then we walked down to the arcade to see the boutiques.  A waterfall along the back of the skyscraper had poinsettias as Christmas reminders.  A balcony was covered with the flowers.  And three or four stories of escalators turn heads to the roof.  We went up to see the imports in the French department store and German boutique.  Each level of escalator was crowed with Christmas shoppers.  The stores overflowed with people.  We looked around, after waiting in hallways packed with visitors.  Getting through the crowds to exit took two or three levels of department store displays down.  Once we were outside, we turned on the sidewalk and headed for the bus back uptown.

After riding back uptown, we had more Christmas shopping to do.  No more stores, I thought, but wandering through shops takes a few days in this place.

Then back to the hotel.  Gray was planning to meet us for dinner, and we had to change.  I'd brought no dressy clothes for New York, and my brother had brought me an old skirt and dress for me to wear there.  He'd even brought me shoes; although, I'd worn a pair that I could wear.

I changed for dinner and put on my coat.  We left for the restaurant; and after we walked through the arcade, we met my brother.  Gray was sitting waiting for us when we arrived.  He'd been working that day.

Gray was waiting for us in New York when we went out in the evening.  He was sitting at a table in his suit.  Gray told us about work, the city, he had even brought his briefcase.  He took business in school and works for a company, and his work has polished his manner.  He socializes with us all, but we all talk.

He said he gets a few new suits a year, and he thanked me for the tin bottle opener I'd sent him from Hamburg.  I found it along the U-bahn route, in one of the magazine kiosks.  Right before I went home one day, I saw it in the glass case, and I knew that my brother would like it.

All morning out, and no electronic typewriter.  After walking around the block for hours.  In a window, I saw a typewriter that looked similar to my old one.

The people at the store said they'd send someone down to look for it.

The stock boy disappeared.  Fifteen or twenty minutes elapsed, and no typewriter.  He didn't return.  Disappointed, we left and got ready to walk downtown that afternoon.

We arrived at another tourist shop.  This store was sophisticated.  I saw tastefully etched logos; postcards; in the window.  When we went into the store; two more pens, and I went to the cash register.  I didn't think I'd need any more souvenirs of the city.  I put the pens away when I went back to the hotel; but the typewriter store would close soon, and I wanted to see whether the model shown in the window was a replacement for my old one.  The stock boy had brought a new box up from the storeroom.  He'd left it behind the counter; and a salesperson, the same one who'd sent the stock boy off to find the typewriter; brought out the unopened cardboard container, opened  it, and let me look at the instruction manual.  I didn't know whether the cheaper model was worth buying, or not.  Maybe I should wait until I returned to the U.S. and find a new one then.  The new model was similar to the old one, but the front if it was beige instead of black.  I told the salesperson I'd buy it, and he went off to ring it up on the cash register.

He brought out an adapter, because I said I'd be taking it to Europe.  He told me that a ribbon was included and I realized that I might be able to find more of them out of the country; I'd seen them in department stores overseas.  I could always use batteries instead of the wall outlets.

The box would have fit into my suitcase, but the contents would take less space.

One more day in New York, and then I had to get back on the plane.  I already had a new ticket.

Gray brought me a birthday present before I left for the airport.  When he'd visited me in college, he'd moved into an apartment and sat in town all day talking to students and ordering drinks. Now he'd brought me a portrait.  He was standing among the cherry blossoms somewhere.  Sunglasses shaded half of his face, his hair was cut short, and he grinned for the camera.  The cherry blossoms clustered in front of his face.  He wore a pale windbreaker.  I think he was visiting relatives and touring the city.  "How do you like the frame?," he asked.  He had it in an acrylic frame.  I liked the picture. I could put it on a desk or shelf.  I put it back in its wrapping paper.  Maybe he thought I had too many books, or that I wouldn't be able to read another one with school assignments.

He was in a hurry to get back to his apartment.  The weekend was almost over for him; he had to work the next day.  We got into a taxi together, and Mark and I said "goodbye" to him before we got back to check out.  He headed off around a corner, and the taxi continued without him to the hotel.

After carrying all of my baggage outside, Mark decided that we'd go to the airport together.  He didn't want to sit and wait.  I had to sit around and wait by myself.  He left me at the door.

We'd passed the globe from the sixties World Fair on the way.  "Don't you remember the World Fair?," Mark asked.  "We took you with us when you were little." I couldn't remember it, but I'd been by the site before.
After finding a cart from my baggage and then the ticket counter and baggage check in, I waited in a line; then headed for the terminal.  My flight wouldn't leave for hours.  I had all afternoon and evening to sit in the airport.

I hadn't expected to return to Germany so soon, but the plane ticket was for that day; and unless I missed the plane, I thought I'd probably arrive in Frankfurt the next day.  I could have either stayed there or continued back to the town I live in.  I'd wait to decide.  I'd probably be tired after traveling without sleep.

Before leaving the terminal, I went over to the exchange counter to see whether I could still change dollars for German marks.  The counter was open and had German currency.  I kept a few dollars, and made sure I wouldn't arrive in Frankfurt without useable bills.