Meeting Anton

Or: My childhood is a lie.

Because that is what I found out during my layover in Miami. 

Now you’re probably wondering what a stay at an airport has to do with my childhood. I’m going to tell you but in case you are from Germany and grew up loving the “Michel” movies based on Astrid Lindgren’s children’s books, you read this at your own risk. I warned you and I will not be held liable if this wrecks your childhood. I warned you.

But let’s start at the beginning. 

Upon arriving at a US airport you have to go through immigration and then go pick up your luggage, give it to some airport employee (and pray that they will check it through correctly to your final travel destination) and then go through security and proceed to your gate. At first, I was a little bummed out because my layover lasted seven (very long) hours and airports without free wi-fi really aren’t that much fun for seven hours. 

But then I met a young lad from Sweden whilst going through immigration. He was headed for Montego, Jamaica and had a two hour layover in Miami. Not as long as mine but at least I had some entertainment for a while. We chatted all the way through immigration and then found our suitcases after some searching. He even was a gentleman and took one of mine for my convenience. After giving the suitcases to some airport employee (and praying that they would get checked through to our final destinations correctly) we went on and mocked the inefficiency of the airport procedures whilst waiting in line. Eventually we grabbed a cup of coffee at the worlds slowest Starbucks venue and hung out at his departure gate.

At this point, let me introduce to you Anton from Vimmerby, Sweden.

Now, those of you who know the movie “Michel aus Lönneberga” (or any of its sequels) will know that it takes place in that same area where my airport friend comes from and that Michel’s dad is called Anton. So naturally we got to talk about those movies. 

I’ve got to mention here that those movies are very memorable to me and that I used to watch them whenever they were on TV (which in Germany means every year at Easter and Christmas). For those of you who do not know the movies, it is based on the ventures of the titular character Michel. He is a little boy who lives with his family, a farm laborer and a milkmaid on a farm in Småland, Sweden. And even though he never means any harm he always ends up driving his surroundings crazy with all the pranks he deliberately or accidentally plays on them. And to me it always seemed like Michel was such an iconic figure. I simply associated the name “Michel” with a little rascall.

Enter my airport friend Anton from Vimmerby. 

As I he told me, in the original version of the movies (and books) “Michel” is actually called “Emil”. 

I was shocked. 

I don’t think I can ever watch that movie again because now I’d have to constantly think “Emil from Lönneberga”. Which just doesn’t seem to fit. Emil isn't a name I associate with all the prank-playing blonde kid from Sweden. Michel is such a name. But I can't help wondering what my opinion on this would be if they hadn't changed the names for the German version. And why did they change it at all? After all, all the other characters got to keep their names and Emil isn't a name that would be uncommon to use in Germany.

There are just so many questions. And my broken heart. Shattered together with my childhood.

...and this is the story of how an airport encounter ruined my childhood and leaves a very difficult question:

Emil or Michel?

       

       

(click images for sources)

Flying to Montevideo

My trip to Uruguay started on Monday very early in the morning. To be exact, my parents and I left for the airport in Munich at 4am. Needless to say I was a little late because I’m not exactly the definition of a morning person. But it didn’t matter because we were still at the airport on time and because my plane didn’t leave until 15 minutes after its scheduled time because they had to defrost the wings or something like that. 

After a short flight I arrived in sunny London. There I had to change into a bigger plane and on went the travels. The following flight to Miami was rather ordinary. The movie selection wasn’t the best so I stuck to reading “The fault in our stars” by John Green which I can highly recommend you to read. Food was also rather crappy as I guess plane food is supposed to be but at least they served shortbread. 

Upon arrival in Miami I had to go through immigration as required in the US. Then I had to pick up my luggage just to hand it back to an airport employee. And please do not ask why that is because the sense behind this procedure is a complete mystery to me. 

Now, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to my layover in Miami because it lasted  for seven very long hours. You may wonder why I didn’t use those seven hours to explore the city of Miami and to be honest I actually contemplated that option. But since I didn’t know whether the airport was far outside of Miami or more to the city center (the latter of which is the case) I figured I better stayed where I was. After all I am not the most punctual person and there was a 90% chance I’d find a very fast way to Miami Beach and then end up not making it back on time for my connecting flight. 

Luckily I met a law student named Anton from Sweden who was partly responsible for my staying at the airport. If I hadn’t had a nice conversation going with him (and I admit he was pretty cute) I might have ended up making the snap decision to leave against any good reason. 

But Anton kept me entertained until he had to catch his flight to Montego and after that it was really not a question anymore whether or not I should go. I was really thankful for this encounter, even though a specific conversation with him completely shattered my childhood. But this is a whole different story and I will write about it in my next blogpost. 

After Anton had left I still had about 5 hours of boredom in front of me. I soon finished "The fault in our stars" (again: recommend it!) and of course my laptop wasn’t much use either since the airport doesn’t have free wi-fi and I didn’t bring the right adapter with me to plug it in. Due to the weak battery I couldn’t even watch a movie. So I actually looked into my Spanish book and tried to study some past tense Spanish grammar. But I soon gave up on it and went to a corner store where I got myself a magazine to read. And somehow time went by and I got on the last plane: Miami to Montevideo.

At first I thought it would be even worse than the transatlantic flight from London to Miami because the seats didn’t have individual screens for watching movies or TV-series but there were only a few monitors in the middle (which showed very weird looking movies). Call me spoiled but I believe it isn't too much to ask for such luxury on an eight hour flight. But again I made a fortunate encounter. 

This time I met a girl named Joon who was from Korea but living in Cincinnati. She was on her way to traveling around South America with two of her friends. We had a nice conversation and the flight didn’t seem as long to me. Maybe that was also due to the fact that it was night time and I got to sleep a little.  Eventually we arrived in Montevideo. 

Upon arrival I had to go through immigration and get my tourist visa form stamped. The line in front of the passport control was maybe even longer than the one at the US immigration and even though I didn’t have a Swedish fella with me this time it seemed to move faster. And they handed out chocolate which of course menas I felt welcome!

After that I got my luggage and found me a shared taxi to my place. It took a while to find more passengers but in the end I got directly to my new place. I’ll save a description of it and an introduction of my roommates and landlord for another blogpost. This one is already pretty long....

...as was the flight. 

 Layover time.