From First Class to No class and back-
As I bid my 5 children, my mother, and the dry heat of Utah adieu for 6 weeks, a welling up of tears had begun. I had dreamed of this moment for most of my American life. I would be returning to the beautiful, mysterious land of love all by myself, ready to go on a personal trek of fulfillment.
I dressed to my version of "nines" and with my lovely mother accompanying me to the gate, I felt like the little princess in all of my old photo books at home. Full of innocence, wonder and adventure. I stepped over the pad and into the plane and I nearly felt I was crossing the threshold at a new home, except it was all mine.
(I'm all for sharing, in fact, I rarely get a moment's peace at home and absolutely love and feel comfortable with it but this particular time it was all of my personal work blossoming right before my eyes.)
With the help of some really good "friends with benefits", I was able to fly first class all the way! So far, in my life I have only a few times benefited from being royal, and the majority of the time benefited from being a military dependent.
Well, after a 10 hr flight the eagle landed;) Boy oh boy I was gonna conquer every goal I had and hit the ground running...
Nearly 12 hrs since landing, I was still at the airport...
Even after countless hours of preparing and putting everything in order; I was waiting. I had forgotten to switch funds from my checking into savings and literally had access to $40 to buy a disposable cell phone, internet access and lunch. Forgot to exchange $'s to Euro's.
With all of technology today and all the spirit and spunk you can conjure up to take this on, your mother's advice is right, always have a plan B.
The plan was to get a hotel and return and wait for others in my group to show. One woman in particular was...let's call her Stacy. I had met Stacy at the French Study Abroad meeting. We had very quickly befriended each other and made some plans. Although there wasn't much, I was to meet her at the airport, possibly stay in Paris for a couple of days, and then travel down to Tours together... tomorrow....
So, what to do???? I could wander the airport and find a place to kind of "bum it"...so that's just what I did, until I found out that the airport closes at midnight. An officer told me that the train station was open all night though and I could wait overnight. It was kind of scary, sketchy locals and fatigued travelers makes for a perfect horror film.
Luckily I found some other travelers with the same problem. 2 sisters from the Jehovah's Witness Missionary group. They didn't know I was LDS otherwise they might not have chosen to take up with the likes of me, but nonetheless, we found a corner in the train station that we could “MacGyver” it and take turns keeping watch over our stuff. From Princess to Pauper in less than 24 hours;)
Now you may think that I'm going to say that the 2 ladies were posers and took off with my stuff but no, they actually stayed with me all night until about 8:30 when my friends flight would be in.
I didn't sleep that well in fact when Stacy arrived we were able to buy our train tickets into Paris. I don't really know how long the train ride was because Stacy said I about passed out hunching over my bags. "The best sleep since arriving though," I thanked her.
Paris was a dream. Everything I had remembered and more. A few more blisters but who notices those when your staring out of the castle like hotels and onto the River Seine.
I was back. I was ready. I was on a mission to do everything.
