Arriving Home

Day 500 (November 10, 2019) – Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

On the 500^th day of our trip, the Nieuw Statendam docked at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale. We were up before dawn to pack up our bags for the last time and to grab some breakfast. After eating we went up to the top deck to take a look around. It was a beautiful day. The sun was rising over the ocean and it was already pleasantly warm out. Of course, Port Everglades itself wasn't much to look at. It’s mostly parking lots and shipping docks, but it was our first view of the US in over 16 months.

Sunrise at Port Everglades. 

I’m not really sure how I felt about being back home to be honest. On the one hand I was glad our trip was over - it was time, but on the other hand I was already worried about what was supposed to happen next. We had to figure our lives out again. Where to live, where to work, and all of that stuff. I probably should have given myself a few weeks before starting to worry about all that, but I couldn’t help it.

Our first view of the US in 16 months. 

At any rate, we still had to make it off the ship and up to the Orlando area. We ran into one of our table mates on deck and said our goodbyes, then went back to our cabin to get our bags and disembarked into a large warehouse where we had to pass through immigration and customs. I had two expectations, neither of which came true. The first was that passing through immigration would be easy. I mean, we were back home again. We’re supposed to know how to do things here. That turned out to be a very wrong assumption. There was a very long line, some confusion, and a couple of extremely unhelpful people working the line. There was a line for global entry, which we qualified for, but we needed to get a physical stamp for insurance purposes to prove when we returned to the US. Normally, global entry is all done electronically and there is no passport stamp or person to help, so we expected to have to wait in the normal line. Of course, we asked someone this and they totally dismissed our question and told us to get in the regular line, more out of frustration by our question than out of actual necessity. Turned out both lines went to the same place with a physical immigration officer who processed the paperwork. We slowly inched our way forward in line and when we finally got up to the desk, my second expectation would be that there would be some comment from the immigration officer about being gone for so long, or about where we had come from, or why there was so many stamps, but we both passed through without a spoken word. Seemed kind of like a letdown. I half expected a ‘welcome back home,’ but that wasn’t to be had. Although I suppose I shouldn't complain about not being peppered with questions. I always hated when that happened elsewhere.

Port Everglades might not have been much to look at, but it was something.

We exited the terminal and walked outside, officially back in the US. We didn’t have too much time to think about it though. We had a rental car to pick up. When we looked this up before, the rental car pickup was only a 20-minute walk from the terminal, so we figured we’d just walk there. I don’t think anyone else was walking. There were no sidewalks nor any crosswalks across the intersections. There was probably a free shuttle that would have taken us there, but it didn’t even cross our minds to look into that. By the end of our trip, for anything that showed up being a 40-minute walk or less we'd just pick up our bags and hike it without putting any more thought into it.

At a highway rest stop for coffee and wifi. 

When we picked up the rental car it was kind of refreshing to know what was going on again. No more mysteries. We knew everything that they were trying to upsell us on and politely declined everything. It felt good to have such a solid command over a transaction like this. On the drive up towards central Florida we stopped at a rest station, bought a couple coffees from Dunkin' Donuts and used the wifi to let Travis’ parents know we were on our way. We met up with them without any problems. They took us out to lunch at a very American-feeling diner, decorated with an eclectic collection of cars and car parts. Something this over-the-top was definitely an American thing. They made a great choice. It was also nice to be reacquainted with people that felt so familiar to us. 

Jilly was curious about our return, but far from excited. It had been a very long time since she last saw us after all.

We also got a chance to meet our dog Jilly again. Our reunion was a little less exciting than we had hoped for. We were plenty excited to see her, but she was a little hesitant when she saw us again. She seemed to be a mix of confused and shy. After very briefly giving us a smell over, she walked away to hide in a bedroom for a while. So perhaps it wasn’t the super happy reunion we were expecting, but she, like us, had a lot to get used to again.