now boarding...

well, just as we suspected.. the day has come. i spent the last week running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to complete the mother of all to-do lists. to be honest, i became so reliant on that list that i would write down every thought, just in case i needed to remember it later.

the vast majority of yesterday was spent packing, with the help of my long-suffering and endlessly patient mother (and several spacebags!). we did a little magic and got most of the things i had intended to bring: clothing/shoes/desk and school items/decorations... the list goes on. somehow we got all of this (and a boatload more) into these two bags. really three, the backpack counts. seriously, my mother is a saint. she did, however, have me walk up and down the street with my bags. there were heavy (50lbs and 35lbs respectively..) but i managed. thank goodness for wheels.  haha.

my sweet boyfriend was kind enough to come and keep me company through the wee hours of the night after my parents went to sleep while i finalized travel plans, checked (and rechecked) my bags, consulted various lists, and tried to stay calm. somehow, i felt confident enough in my packing to get a normal amount of sleep!

thanks to yesterday's productivity, this morning was very relaxed. drew and i ran to hobby lobby to get a mini sewing kit, i ate my last eggos for the next six months, drew tormented my dog.. pretty normal. we left the house and headed to the airport around noon. (colleen was lucky enough to miss half her school day in order to see me off, bringing her grand total of school this week to approximately 4 hours.)

as most of you know, spontanaity is my middle name. ...not. i like having things planned. but i will say, i have become much more flexible over the past few years. so when we got there, the airline informed me that no, i would not be flying from philedelphia, as the plane had a flat tire on the runway, so my flight would  have arrived in philly 15 minutes before my overseas flight departed (not good). that's alright though, because they were able to get me on a flight to charlotte only thirty minutes later, departing for paris at 8pm (instead of 6pm from philly). so i get there a few hours later, no big deal. except the train i had intended to take departs 15 minutes after i now arrive (sound familiar?), so i can't make that connection. hmm. my biggest worry was that i wouldn't be able to inform my friend in angers that i would be arriving 2 hours later than expected - it's not good etiquette to keep someone waiting at a train station for two hours, especially when they're there as a courtesy to you. i'd like to say that i kept a cool head, took it in stride, and calmly accepted the changes. but this new wrench in my plans, added to the impending goodbyes, upset me a little. my entourage sat with me in the waiting lounge for a few minutes, but at 1:30, i made the move to security. saying goodbye was hard, mostly because my hormones are all out of whack and i was still worried about my train situation. so i was a little wobbly getting through security. plus i was nervous that the security people would take my curling iron (i don't know why). thankfully, my bags made it through the x-ray thing with only a brief pause over the backpack. i arrived at the gate with only a few minutes to spare before boarding, so before i knew it, i was on a little plane, seated next to an elderly businessman. pretty unexciting. except when i asked him how long the flight to charlotte is, and he answered me, i realized - this man is french.

that's when it hit me that maybe this whole flight change ordeal was supposed to happen. what better omen could i have than to sit next to a kind frenchman who spent about twenty minutes giving me advice about when to visit the french riviera? he informed me that a friend of his (also on the flight, a few rows back) would even be on my flight to paris! after the SUPER SHORT flight to charlotte (45 minutes!), we waited planeside for our checked carry-on baggage and i met said frenchman's friend. we chatted for a few minutes (he asked if i was french!) and then we said 'bon voyage' and i headed to my next gate.

and here i sit. the first thing i did was check the train schedule, so i should be okay on that front. and if not, i'll figure it out. (see how flexible i am?) my flight takes off in two hours, so i only have a little more time here in the states to contemplate the next six months in europe. and thanks to the free wifi, i can update the blog once more before i fly away! technology is so neat. speaking of which, i have skype for communications purposes - if you'd like my username, let me know. :) not as technological, but if you'd like my postal address, i'll be putting on here as soon as i find out what it is!

i'd be lying if i said i weren't nervous. i'm insanely nervous. but as my daddy told me at the airport, i'm getting to do something that few people do - live out my dream. it's been eight years in the making, but all the viewings of beauty and the beast, all those french vocab quizzes, all the guidebooks i've read - they all add up to bring me here, to this moment. let's be real, it's been my whole life in the making, but i am so happy to be at the place i am in my life.

i'm moving to france today! :)

-jill