Well the time had come to say goodbye to Europe and the Dream vacation of a lifetime. We had an amazing 25 days and though happy to be getting home to the ones we love (2 big hairy kids & couple of moms) we depart with the usual saddness that the end of a vacation has.
We woke in a timely manner and got out the door 5 minutes early (9:25am Paris time) to meet the G7 taxi we scheduled. As we walked out the elevator the taxi driver was just pulling up in front with 11 euro's already on the meter. He was a nice driver that spoke very good English and I should have asked him about the 11 euro's but at this point I just wanted to get home with as little hassle as possible and I was getting anxious. I felt foolish when he asked which terminal at Orly we needed and I realized all my notes were packed in the luggage instead of my purse. He quickly looked it up in a book he had and we were off. When Mark went to pay him he almost gave him a 10 euro tip until I brought it to his attention. As we entered the terminal and Mark spotted the armed police carrying automatic weapons he had the suspicion that we were in the wrong terminal. As I waited with the luggage Mark went to the information office to find out where were needed to be and sure enough it was the next terminal. So dragging our 2 bags a piece behind us we shlepped through the airport to get the tram to the next terminal and within 10 minutes we were where we needed to be sitting and waiting for the airline desk to open up. Sure is nice to be early and not stressed. Well at least relatively stress free. I was so anxious to get home that every little thing was bothering me and if it wasn't for Marks even keel and approach to matters I may have just lost it, it really does help to have two people to help each other out. I was very grateful to have him around. While we waited I went to the pastry shop to get our last A.M. pastries and use the last of our euro's.
After our bags were checked going through security wasn't as easy as leaving the US. They have you take all liquids out of your carry on even if they meet the 3 oz limit and personally checked them all but yet they didn't make us take our shoes off. After doing some duty free shopping we waited our few hours to board the plane then we were off for home.
We had a smooth uneventful flight home and watching 3 movies helped pass the 8 hours. I loved Open Skies and will fly them again if possible. Cleared customs in Newark in about 45 minutes and I broke out in a huge grin as the guy welcomed us home....it sounded so good and it was nice to be back where most everyone speaks English.
Checked our bags at the United counter and then it was off to find the cheesburgers we had been craving for a couple of weeks. The beef in France was not the most tender or prepared the way we are use to here in the US so beef seemed to be what we were both craving.
Catch our United flight to Indy and land at 10:30pm Indy time in a thunderstorm. Even though this flight was only a few hours it felt longer then the intercontinental flight because I was so anxious to finally get home. The landing was smooth but as we rolled up to the gate the captian came on the speaker to say that we would have to sit on the plane until the thunderstorm had passed and it was safe for the ground crew to roll out the walkway. I think everyone moaned and within a minute we all let out a sigh of relieve as somebody on the ground crew rolled it out and we started deboarding. Yay we must have been living right. We wondered as we were walking to luggage claim if there will be a delay do to weather to get luggage off the plane. Again we were living right as we walked up to luggage claim our bags arrived on an earlier flight and were sitting there waiting on us. So we were out the door before the others from our flight. Our moms pick us up at the curb and 20 minutes later we're home telling them all of our great stories. Though it's been 19 hours since we left Paris we're wound up and keep them up until 1 a.m. Thought we'd sleep the next day away but I woke up wide awake at 9 a.m. and beat everyone else out of bed, but.....boy let me tell you the jet lag hit at about 2 pm and for the next 3-4 days I felt like I had a fog around my head. Funny never did get the jet lag going just coming home. I'm sure much of it was the over excitement of everything.
As the French say Voila. That's it for our great vacation and I know there are a few things I forgot to mention but I'm too old to remember everything that happened in 25 days. Hope you all enjoyed the stories as much as I enjoyed sharing them.
Bye Bye
Au revoir
Auf Wiedesehen
Ciao Ciao
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