'Howdy' aka 'we miss Colombia so much'

We spent most of the last few days in Cartagena with Jordie (a pretty crazy Dutch guy) (including a spontaneous salsa class... now we're pros). Then came the big journey home... First, we had a nice chat with the taxi driver in Cartagena, and everything was tip-top at the airport... Then we were handed over to the Americans and everything went downhill from there! The Americans still seem to think I have something strange about me, because once again I was 'invited' for a second very thorough check. Even the elastic band of my pants and my dictionary were carefully examined (I assume they were looking for the white powder...). And even though I was the last one, I was finally allowed to board the flight to Newark. When we arrived in Newark, we called the free shuttle service from our motel. They told us to wait outside door 9, which we did for over an hour. We called again and it turned out they meant the 'other door 9' (of course, we had no idea there were two). So we had to take a pretty overpriced taxi ('tip is not included' - 4 dollars tip for a 5-minute taxi ride with a rude driver). When we arrived at the motel, we were treated very rudely and had to pay more than we thought ('tax is not included'). When we got to our creepy room, I noticed that all the shampoo in my backpack had leaked, and Cony's nail polish remover had leaked too... fantastic! We finally went to bed around 3 o'clock in the morning and wanted to get away from the somewhat creepy, ugly motel as soon as possible in the morning. After we dropped off our luggage near Penn Station, Cony went shopping and I went to the Empire State Building. From then on, the day got better (and the Americans got nicer, although nowhere near Colombia but okay). At the airport, we met some Americans who were flying to a dog show or something and had to finish a brandy they had (the security check is much more fun when you're tipsy 😉). Now we are already in London and facing overly kitschy 'God bless the queen' mugs. We have definitely experienced a cultural change in the past 2 days, more than once. We already miss Colombia, which only speaks to how much we both enjoyed the trip. However, we are still looking forward to coming home. See you soon!