I've been home for a few months now, and I keep trying sit down and write a final post about my experience, but it is hard to put into words all of the feelings and emotions that go along with such an ending.
I guess, I should tell the story to the ending first.
The last few weeks seemed to fly by. All of a sudden it was my last day of work; and an odd day it was. All of my regular classes were canceled. So, my plan to say goodbye to all my students fell through. Instead, I worked one-on-one with a young girl trying to improve her pronunciation of the Martin Luther King Speech. It was interesting trying to explain the meaning of the speech to her in French. I left that day without really any closure; no one said goodbye to me...no one really noticed. I said goodbye best I could to the students without disrupting classes.
I was bummed but I had bigger and better things ahead of me. Nick was coming in just two days and we had an adventure ahead of us! Or at least I thought.
This was all around April 17th or if you had been following international news just three days after the irruption of the volcano in Iceland. It would ultimately stop Nick from coming for our two weeks in Italy, and lead me to a two-day-travel-adventure to get home sooner.
Nick's flight was canceled the day he was due to leave and instead of spending a week in Chicago waiting for a flight out, we decided he should get his refund and I'd figure out a way home.
I went from having two weeks left to get all accounts shut down and seven-plus-months of clothes and memorabilia packed and ready to leave within five days. Now, in America that is no problem. In France in the middle of their spring break and when all forms of transportaion is shut down, it was like being in the middle of Nordstrom on Black Friday. The bank was closed two out of the three times I ended up going there, the train was on strike so there was limited tickets available and two hours lines to just get a ticket, and then there was the constant vigil I held on flightstats.com to see if my flight would even take off.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself...I haven't even explained the plan to get home. I had two options, get to Barcelona or Italy to fly back home. Either one was a toss up because who knew how long the ash would stay out of those airways. I went with my gut and I chose to get to Barcelona and take the soonest flight out. I got the last over night train ticket available for Tuesday, April 20th leaving from Paris to Barcelona that would get me there early morning, but not enough time to catch the cheap flight home.
I had found a ticket hom
e for $500, which in the middle of an airlines crises that has kept millions of people stranded is a dirt cheap price. Only problem was I didn't have enough time from the train station to the airport to make it. So, I went back to the drawing board and found what would be the most expensive ticket I have ever purchased. It was well of $2,000 for coach. But it was my only option unless I wanted to wait another two weeks. So, I said goodbye to any future shopping trips and bought my way home.This was all on Saturday when Nick was supposed to have arrived. So, the next three days I was neurotic with checking flightstats.com to see if my flight had taken off that day. Sunday: it didn't. I was in tears and came to the conclusion that I was going to have to stay longer and deal with it.
I know alot of you are probably thinking being trapped in Paris wouldn't be so bad, but when you've been away from the love of your life for so long and dreaming of this two week travel fest through Italy; it kind of a bummer. Also, at the time no one knew when this would stop or when the airports would open back up. We had no idea when we all might make it home. Luckily, I had great roommates who were totally supportive and helped me with everything, and also helped me to see that another few weeks wouldn't be the end of the world. Of course, after I came to that conclusion, the flight took off on Monday.
Booya, we were in business. I was going home!
After that, everything went surprisingly smoothly. I got to my bank to close my account, I finished packing a day ahead of leaving, and I got to spend my last day in Paris with my friends and just enjoy its beauty.
It took me approximately, 35 hours to get home. I had a 12-hour over night train ride, a three hour window at the airport, an eight hour flight from Barcelona to NYC, a six hour lay over and then a six hour flight to PDX. On top of that I had a total of four bags, one big enough to fit me inside of it, that I had to lug on the train, lug off the train, get in a cab, get to the airport, drop them off at check-in, pick them back up in customs at JFK, lug through a thousand people to walk through customs, put them back through check-in and then finally pick them up at baggage claim. (I made Nick carry them then and he had trouble with it!)
Another lucky break was that Barcelona was the ONLY airport in all of western Europe to stay open. My gut lead my right once again.
After I got home, we used the rest of Nick's vacation to go on a week and half road trip through California. It wasn't Italy but it was defiantly a great replacement.
Since I've been back, I've had all kinds of mixed feelings. I'm so happy to be home and starting my next chapter in life, but I have my moments when I miss Paris and it's old windy roads. There are some mornings where I wake up and don't know where I am, because I had just been dreaming of my Parisian apartment or our favorite restaurant or park. The whole adventure was such a mixture of emotions and experiences, I will always look back on it fondly and with a great feeling of accomplishment. Really, it's hard to write a final blog on the time there, because it has played such a big part in my life before, during and even after I was there.
Part of me still expects to be going back soon, and even though I don't know when, I know I'll be back someday walking through the windy streets of Paris, eating a pain au chocolat and remembering my days there.
