Home Sweet Home (A Reflection on the GToE)

At 4:00 am Saturday morning, the telephone in my hotel room in Athens rang to wake my sorry butt up. It occurred to me that most of my friends in the States hadn't even gone to bed yet and I was just waking up. Ugh. 12 minutes later I walked out of my hotel and 2 minutes after that I was entering the Athens airport. My 6am flight took off on time and arrived in Rome 2 hours later (7am Rome time), where I had a four and half hour layover. Ugh! By 11:30am, my flight to Philadelphia had taken off from Rome and landed around 3:00pm (Philadelphia time). I did not sleep a wink the entire flight. My brother very kindly picked me up from the airport and took us home. I needed to stay awake until a reasonable time to try to adjust to the Eastern time zone. I made it until 10:00pm: 25 hours straight of being awake. Of course, then I was wide awake at 2:30am and couldn't get back to sleep. Ugh! I also feel like something my brother's cat dragged in, pounced on, ripped to shreds, ate, and vomited back up. Plus, it's freaking cold! So yeah, not a great travel day.

On the plane ride home, I was thinking about my trip and how wonderful it was, but not just because I got to see some beautiful cities and amazing sites. Yes, seeing the Sistine Chapel, Hagia Sophia, the Acropolis, Blarney Castle, and everything else that I saw was amazing, but that's just a part of what made it a great trip. The thing that really made this trip special was the people that I met along the way. Just a little sampling of the melange of characters I met: in London, the friends of my friends, Jen and Bill, made me feel like a long time friend and a part of their circle. My Irish tour guide of Cobh and Blarney Castle was quite a character who looked like an over-sized leprechaun and was the nicest person that I met in Dublin. My new Norwegian filmmaker friend who is ultra talented and made what could have been a horrendous trip one of the nicest. In Prague, I met a woman from New Mexico who has issued me an invite to stay with her wife and her, if and when I get to Albuquerque. The two sisters from Pakistan who shared their food with me in Paris - just because. My roomies in Venice who were like old friends that I hadn't seen in ages and the medical student from Chicago who was wickedly entertaining. Everyone at the hostel in Istanbul - it was like a family get together. The retired couple from Maine that I met during my walking tour of Athens who had just finished their 27 month Peace Corps stint in Tanzania. There were so many more people that touched my life while I was away that I would be here all day writing their stories. Even more amazing were the people that I entrusted my story to (about why I was traveling for two months and my plans for the next few months) were incredibly supportive of my choice and applauded my "spirit and bravery" (their words, not mine).

As I said the other day, everyone should take time out of their life to do a trip similar to mine. While it is a bit lonely traveling alone, you also meet the most amazing people when you do. Now, was it all hearts and roses? No, but mostly it was fantastic. Along the way I lost and/or had to replace: 4 scarves, 2 hats, my favorite pen, my cheap umbrella, my new suede boots (bought in Milan), my yellow overboots from Venice, and, of course, my beloved Nikon camera. The only loss that I'm a little chuffed about is the new boots. Not that they were very expensive (30 euros), but they were really comfortable and lovely. I stupidly left them in a bag the shuttle van in Istanbul when I got to the airport, along with those 'lovely' rainboots.

As for the future, my plans are as follows: deal with making myself a PA resident so I can get healthcare, find a new oncologist in Philly to get an update on my health, and to start planning my US driving tour, which may or may not commence in January. Meanwhile, I'll keep blogging about random other stuff as the mood hits me.

To everyone who followed my travels through Europe, I thank you for taking time out of your busy day to share in my travels. I hope you enjoyed my braindroppings.