Day 112: Sunday, May 8

Happy Mother's day to the most beautiful, kind-hearted, generous woman I have ever met.  I love you momma, I am so happy I got to be with you on your day!

Today, unbeknown to anyone, I flew back to America!  I wasn't supposed to come home until Friday, but I moved my flight up so I could surprise Kevin.  I woke up bright and early with my family, gathered my bags which I had secretly already packed, then headed to the airport.  It was really nice to be able to drive to the airport for once!  It would have been such a hassle to take the public transportation all the way to the airport with four humongous bags.  Actually, it would have been pretty much impossible.  So the four of us schlepped our way to the airport, dragged all of our bags to the check out counter, which of course is the furthest possible counter from the entrance, then headed to security.  We stopped before we reached our gate and grabbed some food so we wouldn't have to eat the disgusting plane food.  Back fire.  We ended up spending 60E on absolutely terrible chicken sandwiches.  We would have been way better off with the plane food, as least that's free.  I guess I needed one more terrible over-priced meal as a parting gift from my study abroad trip.  And I got it.  So thank God for that.

The plane ride wasn't too bad.  My sister and I had reserved a row for two; after we took off we intertwined with each other until we were both comfortable.  We tried to find a movie that we both agreed on, and when we finally settled on The Dilemma, we spent 20 minutes trying to play it at the exact same time.  The play button had a bit of delay sometimes, so trying to synchronize it proved to be a debacle.  It ended up being a waste of time, because that was by far the worst Vince Vaughn movie I have ever seen.  Not funny at all.  We turned it off after 15 minutes.  However, things briefly turned around after we switched the movie off when the stewardess gave us the most delicious cup of chocolate ice cream I have ever had.  Like melt in your mouth, creamy richness, utterly amazing ice cream.  No exaggeration.  I considered asking for another one, but I decided that would be fat, so I refrained.   

I'm pretty sure I fell asleep afterwards, and stayed asleep for the majority of the flight.  Once again, my minute case of Narcolepsy comes in handy!  When we landed, we had a slight layover in New York City.  We were all on different flights home, so we hung out for a little bit longer, then parted ways.

It felt so weird to be back in America for the first time in four months.  Everyone spoke English, all the menu items were in dollars, I didn't look and feel like the minority...it was a beautiful thing.  Weird, but comforting at the same time.  Sitting there in the New York airport the whole thing felt surreal, like it was all dream.  Suddenly I felt like I hadn't just been gone for four months, jetting all around Europe, taking in all these new experiences and learning from all the different cultures.  It wasn't until just then, that I realized how incredibly lucky I am.