The End of Our European Adventure: Part One

Once again, this absence is far to long, and completely unwarranted.  Sure, I’ve been busy since I got home.  But not too busy.  I partially blame myself, for not feeling motivated to finish my blog.  I partially toss the blame to Jon, saying that I’m not ready to finish it until I get my pictures from him, to which he replies “I have four months of pictures to go through, you’ll get them when I get to them.”  Does he really expect me to wait?  I guess so.

I think the real problem is that, finishing the blog means that my trip is officially over.  And as excited as I was to come home and see my friends and family, I’m not ready for it to be over.  I’m ready to go back.  We’ll come back to that in a few more posts.

So, my job right this moment is to tell you about my last few days in Ireland, and our trip home.

Dublin was wonderful, as always.  Jenna was very welcoming, and we had yet another fantastic weekend with her.  We did a lot of walking, a lot of sight seeing, and surprisingly a lot of learning.  The Sunday afternoon we were there, we spent in Dublin’s Archaeology Museum with her mentor for her internship, who happens to be an archaeologist!  Neat!  It was a surprisingly busy afternoon at the museum, but we managed to huddle close as she explained the significance of some of the artifacts in the museum.  Our group grew in numbers as we went along too; I guess they thought we were a free tour?  Also, I learned that not all archaeologists like ancient Egypt.  Apparently it scares her.  Who knew!

We ate some wonderful food (battered fried sausage and chips is a close rival to my favorite fish and chips!), we enjoyed a few drinks, and soaked in the sights.  For the most part the weather was beautiful, except Sunday afternoon.  Before we knew it, Monday night was upon us and it was time to start packing and thinking seriously about a good night’s sleep.  Funny how when sleep is important, you don’t go to bed until well past midnight.

Tuesday morning ran pretty smoothly.  I got up early, showered, and had all our bags fully packed before Jon got up.  Since he’s a serious pain in the morning, I figured that would be a better way to start.  I unfortunately had to leave my walking stick in Dublin so Jon could try and get his through security.  He was far more attached to his, since he made it, and I decided that the chances of two people using them as a crutch would look a little suspicious.

We left after an abundance of hugs before Jenna even left for work, and headed to the bus stop.  The very friendly bus driver made sure we got off at the right stop for our terminal, and we were on our way.

Of course, the first thing I notice as I’m dreading the 4 flights ahead of us, is that there’s a flight directly from Dublin to Orlando.  Seriously?  I don’t know if we even thought to check Orlando flights.  Regardless, I had a gut feeling those tickets probably cost a fortune, and didn’t mind that we weren’t going on that flight as soon as I noticed it was United.

As we go through the daily airport grind, Jon still with his walking stick in hand, it still hadn’t hit me that I was leaving this beautiful country.  It takes until I’m physically sitting in my seat (an exit row seat thanks to Jon’s wonderful timing!) that I start to feel sad for all those “I can’t wait to be home” wishes.  And by then, it was of course too late.

The flights really weren’t that bad.  I had never flown US Airways before, but I can tell you that if they’re an option in the future, I wouldn’t mind doing so again.  Obviously with exit row seats on our longest flight, it was considerably more comfortable than our flights into Europe, but even our domestic flights from Philadelphia to Chicago, Chicago to Charlotte, and Charlotte to Tampa had ample leg room for me, and even enough for Jon.  That’s quite a feat!  We only got food on our international flight (which was pretty good, I might add), but the usual beverage service on the rest.  We had some delays (which made our short layovers in each city a little stressful at times), but all and all, the experience wasn’t awful.  The only plane I slept on was the last one, but by then I had been up for nearly 24 hours anyway, so I guess that’s okay.  The in-flight entertainment on the long flight wasn’t bad; that surfer movie about Bethany Hamilton, and Marley and Me.  A great movie, though I wonder if I was the only one with tears in my eyes.  Jon had to stop watching it.  He won’t shy from saying that movies with dogs are the only type that “move” him.

Once we landed in Tampa, well past our planned midnight arrival, I went from complete exhaustion to that exhausted slap-happy phase.  Knowing that Cristina and Jon’s mom were waiting for us, every step of the de-boarding process seemed to take forever.  When we finally turned the corner in the terminal and saw them, I was so excited to be home.  It didn’t hurt that Cristina had made us signs to welcome us, saying “Welcome Home” in every language of every country we went too, plus Dutch!

After going through baggage claim, we were on our way to the beloved Taco Bus.  We took the time to enjoy our meal there, and went home.  We didn’t hesitate to put on our suits and jump in the pool.  We lasted a while too, considering the pool closes at 11, but we were eventually kicked out.  We proceeded to do a little unpacking, to share little souvenirs, and some much needed laundry.  Some very much needed laundry.  Jon went to sleep at around 3, to catch a little nap before having to take his mom back to the airport.  She made an unfortunate scheduling mistake when planning a business trip, but at least we got to see her briefly.  I fought to stay awake until the two of them left, and then left Cristina to enjoy the quiet living room and get some sleep.  I practically melted into my bed.  I had forgotten how comfortable it was.  I don’t even think I noticed when Jon joined me again after his trip to the airport.

And for now, I’ll leave you with this picture Jon’s mom managed to catch before leaving the airport. 

Bravo, Disney!

So a friend of mine told me she found a ton of the old Disney animated movies on YouTube yesterday through Tumblr, and since they’re unlisted, she shared all the links with me.  Totally not what I needed if I wanted to be even a little productive today.  She’s in the same boat though, she has a paper due tonight.  I just have to pack, hopefully when its necessary I can do them both at the same time!  Although, the sun is out today, unlike yesterday, so we’ll just have to see what we have planned.  It is Easter, so everything will be closed.  I do at least have to go to the beach to get two rocks for two of my “sisters”.  They had the most simple request for a souvenir.

All that being said, I haven’t watched most of these movies in over 10 years, so I don’t mind the fact that she shared all this beautiful information with me.  Especially since some of them have already been banned.  So if anyone wants me to share all the links with you, comment here with your email and I’ll send it to you!

Je déteste l’emballage: Part Deux

For those of you who have been reading since the start, you’ll notice that this looks strikingly similar to my first post.  Hence the “Part Deux” added to the title.

We have started packing.  Ugh.

This time, instead of the constant worry and frustration that I may have forgotten something (which becomes increasingly less possible when you only have a certain amount of items with you, and they’re all in one room), I’m just worried that everything isn’t going to fit in our now reduced luggage.  We have basically three carry-on size bags, and my purse.  One of the bags can only serve to hold all of Jon’s camera equipment, and my purse is just a relatively tiny cross-body bag, so storage is limited.  So in reality, we have two.  Thankfully one of them is being checked, simply because of those unreasonably annoying fluid rules when it comes to flying.  Even worse, yesterday when we took our suitcase to the post office to mail it, we had to take a few things out because the scale here at home was wrong.  So we either have to find room for these items in our luggage, or bid them adieu.  Lets just hope we don’t have to say goodbye to much.

I’ve also come to the realization that I royally fail at post cards.  With all the chaos of dealing with our suit case yesterday, I forgot that I wanted to go to a tobacco shop so I could possibly buy individual stamps instead of an entire book.  So those very few lucky people may be getting a post card from Nice that’s stamped from another country.  I wonder if the post office is open on Saturday here…

I guess we’ll just have to see!  Wish us luck :)

J’ai déjà commencé ma valise

Its kind of sad when that I don’t leave for another 5 days, and I’ve already started packing my stuff up.  Okay, maybe not completely sad, but I think sometimes I try to be too organized.

Jon’s mom did a little bit of research after our UPS shipping price scare, and found that it shouldn’t be much more than $100-150 to ship our big suitcase back to the states so we don’t have to carry it and a whole bunch of stuff we don’t need with us.  I really hope it’s somewhere close to that price range, because though it’s a little expensive, its well worth the convenience of not having all that extra stuff with us.  We’re hoping to go to the post office sometime today, so lets hope what she found is true!

Other than that, it’s about time I write and send out my postcards too.  I bought a handful for a few people a couple of weeks ago, and kind of forgot about them.  I also should start thinking of little things I want to bring home to my family and a couple of friends, which brought me to the unsettling realization that there isn’t a very cool French Riviera souvenir.  So, to my few friends and family who get something from me and look at it and wonder “Well how is this French?”… it probably isn’t, I probably just saw it and thought of you.  The only real souvenir of this region of France is this silly little sachet things filled with dried flowers and such that smell pretty.  I think it’s a little lame.

That is about it really.  I powered through the rest of my online courses for USF, so I’m done with all that (thank goodness!).  Just dinner plans tonight with Ilona, and trying to come up with something worth while for the weekend.  We shall see.

Until then, I’ve uploaded a new picture for the top of my blog, if you didn’t already notice.  Jon took a bunch of pictures from Breil-sur-Roya and put this panorama together from the top of the mountain we hiked.  If you look very closely, you can find me laying in the picture, enjoying the beautiful French sunshine. :)

Parfois, tu dois faire ce que tu dois faire

There are a few advantages and disadvantages to packing your favorite clothes on a 6 month trip.  Advantage: obvious, you have all your favorite clothes with you.  Disadvantage: the realization that they may need to cut them up.

When I was packing for this trip in January, I wasn’t able to pack many shorts with me.  I hate shopping for shorts and haven’t done so in years, and given that they’re necessary 10 out of 12 months of the year in Florida, they were quite worn out.  So worn out that most of them were ripped and better suited for rags than clothing.  So I didn’t pack them, and only came armed with two pairs of Nike running shorts, thinking  “I’ll just buy some shorts as the weather warms up.”  Well, unfortunately I’m about 6 inches taller than the average French woman, which makes finding shorts, or pants of any sort, incredibly difficult.  After a few terrible moments in the dressing rooms of H&M, I realized I may have to do something a little different.

Right before we left, my favorite pair of jeans ripped, so I had to rush out to a mall and search for a new pair.  I ended up buying a pair that I wasn’t crazy about just because they kind of fit, since all the jeans else where either looked ridiculous (why do clothing companies have to rip up your jeans and stain them before you even get to?) or they were too short.  So my first thought was, “Okay, I’ll make those awful jeans I hardly wear into shorts,” and so Jon helped me with that, since I suck at cutting a straight line.

The next day, I decided it was time to turn my beloved grey Fossil corduroys into shorts too.  I love them, and they fit great, but somebody at home accidentally dried them a few months ago and I’ve been in denial about the fact they they’re just a tad too short.  Although, when considering this disadvantage of having to cut up my favorite pair of pants, Jon brought to my attention that I wasn’t “ruining” them like I felt I was, I was re-purposing them, and therefore could continue to wear them for probably at least another year.  That didn’t stop me from insisting he cut them right at that moment, before I talked myself out of it though.

So that being said, here’s my lesson: Keep an open mind when you run into clothing issues like these.  Especially you tall girls.  There will, after all, still be pants long enough for you when you get back to the states.

Je déteste le jet lag.

I’m not exactly sure where to start, so we’ll start with Gasparilla, in Tampa.

Gasparilla is a HUGE pirate invasion celebration that takes place every year in January.  I’m not exactly sure how I feel about the town I live in celebrating piracy, but alas, nothing else of great interest has happened in Tampa worth celebrating.  I decided that, it being my first year in Tampa, that despite the fact that I had all my packing and last minute errands before the trip to run, I would go and partake in the event with my lovely former-roommate Cristina, and her friend Claire.  Needless to say, I understand why Jon refused to go, he hates crowds like that, but quite honestly, I had a great time…

That is until Jon called me to inform me that we couldn’t check into out flights because we didn’t have return tickets.  Uh oh, could they have waited until the very last minute to tell us this?  Needless to say, it was a long, agonizingly stressful process.  But, after a long evening of packing, a morning of running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and not eating a suitable breakfast, 12:00 PM Sunday finally rolls around, and we head to the airport.  Jon has a brownie in his hand, and I actually turned it down.  A BROWNIE!  Butterflies were the least of my concerns; I had dinosaurs in my stomach- big mean T-Rex dinosaurs.  Last minute goodbyes, a few unexpected tears, calls home to mom, and a Facebook status that only read “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!” we were on our flight to Dulles International in DC, conveniently seated in Economy Plus- free of extra fees.  That leg room was quite the teaser.

In flight, I worked on some questions for a quiz I planned on taking as soon as we got to our gate in Dulles.  I finished everything, was feeling great, until we got there and tried to connect to the WI-FI… I will never take free WI-FI for granted again.  Yes kids, Dulles International Airport charges their commuters for WI-FI.  So I had to call my mom and walk her through taking the quiz for me, which was quite the experience in itself.  As if being stressed about an 8 hour flight to Munich wasn’t enough.  9 out of 10 questions (apparently you can’t keep two disagreeing thoughts in your head at the same time, maybe I’m super woman…) and a final goodbye, and we were off to Munich…

Let us go back to the Economy Plus seats we had on our first flight.  We didn’t realize these were special seats until we saw our seats for our Munich flight.  Needless to say, the last time I flew for longer than 3 hours was well over 10 years ago.  I was significantly shorter, had a lot less to carry, and could entertain myself endlessly.  Our seats had so little leg room my knees were touching the seat in front of me… for those of you who know Jon, can you imagine how he felt?  To top it off, we had snotty nosed little Chinese kids in front of us who for the first 20 minutes insisted on bouncing back on their seats.  That is until Jon politely punched the back to the seat so hard his mother finally got the picture.  I need not go into the level of discomfort I felt on this plane.  I just kept thinking “I’m going to France… I’m going to France… This will not defeat me!”

8 hours later we landed in a cold and dreary Munich.  The first thing I noticed was that thankfully, every sign had instructions in English.  Second thing, the airport is so stereotypically German- I love it.  Clean, utilitarian, sterile in color and design, it’s wonderful.  Let me also note that their restrooms are incredible, and their women’s sign is sort of adorable.  Third thing, the police carry MP5s.  I haven’t seen something larger than a hand gun carried by police (other than on a military base) since I lived in Spain.  It sort of gave me the creeps.  I felt like thats what Nazi Germany must have felt like or something.  Guns of that power is something I would expect to see in Dubai, not Munich.  Goodness.  Fourth observation: Free coffee/tea/hot chocolate.  A welcomed dose of caffeine and sugar, I might say.  Though I think you work off all that extra energy walking back to get more, since you only get 6 oz at a time.  Oh, and another downside: yet another airport without free WI-FI.

After a three hour layover, we were ready to board our final flight to Nice.  Only we were unaware that we would have to bus across the the tarmac to get to our plane and politely wait outside as we climb the roll-a-stairs to our seats.  Mind you, this is the end of January in Munich… which means it was a bone-chilling 23 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cold enough that not only the breath from your mouth was visible, but from your nose, and if I’d paid close enough attention, probably our ears too.  Not the pleasant 74 we left in Tampa, that I was dressed for.  We had a tiny plane, with significantly more legroom than the previous, and finally a window seat.  Which was perfect because this was the first flight with a real view- The Alps. Less than 2 hours later, we landed in Nice, though given that its surrounded on one side by water, I was certain that we were about to plumet right in to the Mediterranean Sea (or The Med, as I heard an Englishman call it).

We are now settled into our room with our host family, awaiting our first dinner, while watching their son Nicolas play with ping pong balls and this neat cube thing.  He’s kind of adorable.

C’est une fête!

Well, we are now 2 days away.  Less than two, even.  OMG THATS SO FRICKIN CRAZY!

Tonight is our little going away get together for anyone in Tampa who wants to see us out.  Thankfully, Jon and I went to Brevard and saw everyone there one last time this past weekend.

My to-do list is getting small enough to put on a post-it note now, which is good.  Before I could certainly write a novel with it.  Unfortunately, my favorite pair of jeans finally wore through the bottom and I have to make yet another last minute mall trip for another pair of jeans.  Which I suppose isn’t so bad, because I forgot to get the battery in my watch replaced today, so it all works out.

Well, I should actually get dressed.  :)

Ciao!

J’aime bourses d’études

T-minus 5 days and counting, and all of my monies from scholarships and loans have JUST finished disbursing.  Cutting it a little close, USF?  But alas, its all there.  Which is a relief.  However, once again, I feel like my list of things to do before we leave is getting longer even quicker than it was before.  5 days is not much time, especially since I’m STILL trying to get rid of my car.  Its looking like it may just go back to Brevard at this rate, which I hope not.  Everyone at home is a little busy to keep trying to sell my car, but alas.  Not like I have a whole lot of choice in the matter.

Normally before large trips I would have already started packing, slowly but surely.  I haven’t even tried to think about packing.  Its mildly terrifying, to be frank.

Either way, just a quick post to keep you readers interested.  Jon’s entire family will be here at some point this week, include his grandma and her husband.  In other words, his mom is freaking out about the house being clean (understandably so).

As if I didn’t have enough on my mind! :P  Bonne nuit!

Je déteste l’emballage

I. Hate. Packing.

I know, I’m not actually leaving until the 30th, but I feel like I have been packing for this trip for weeks.  This is partly due to the fact that while packing up my entire apartment to move it into Jon’s storage unit, I basically had to pack for Europe at the same time.  Do you know how difficult it is to imagine what clothes you’ll want to wear six months from now?  To make things even more difficult, Jon seems to think we can both fit our stuff in ONE large suitcase.  I mean, I plan on packing light, but I’m still a girl!

I also find myself worrying about silly things, like shampoo, razors and deodorant.  I mean, the French aren’t exactly known for cleanly shaven armpits, or smelling like a bed of roses.  But I keep thinking about this whole trip as if I’m going to some third-world country in South America, and that is clearly not the case for Nice.

I can say, without hesitation, that I have an extremely long to-do list that needs finishing before I can leave the country, and I’m definitely running out of time.  But more on that later.  Until next time, bonne nuit!