Back to the US of A

The next morning I woke up to this view.  A beautiful sunny day in Paris.  Mixed emotions describes how I felt that day.  The dread and the excitement.  I was ready to be home, back to the daily routine, but there is something to be said for adventure. And, I knew what was waiting.

Zac and I finished packing up our bags and got ready for the journey back to Illinois.

Zac, giving a thumbs up in the hotel room (just realized how blurry the pic is, oh well)

We went to the train station, hopped on the speed train, and ended up back in London a few hours later.

Speed train

Once in London, we bought a one way pass and got on the longest "tube" ride ever.  You have to completely leave the city, take about an hour with all the stops.  We made it through security, with all our Swiss chocolate intact.  Unfortunately the truffels I'd bought for Annie in Bruges, melted in Rome, so those had to be abandoned.  In my backpack I brought back t-shirts for all the little kids from Italy (and somehow got all the sizes right regardless of the fact they are completely different in Europe), Murano glass rings for the sisters and mom, and wooden tulips in a slew of colors from Holland.  Plus, literally a thousand pictures worth of memories.

Zac and I boarded the plane and prepped ourselves for the long flight into Chicago.  

We arrived in Chicago completely unscathed and quickly boarded our flight to St. Louis, our home sweet home.

It was late by the time we got back.  My buddy Josh picked us up and took us home.  Me, being the neat freak that I am, immediately unpacked us and put everything away.  Sorted and started the laundry (which wasn't much, remember, one backpack) and scrubbed off all the foreign, well, everything.  The next we woke up, home, in our bed.  Our bed. I'd forgotten what it was like.  

Zac and I planned smart.  We both had the day at home before we had to go back to work.  We spent it laying around, watching TV and actually resting, doing not much of anything.  It was a little surreal.  Knowing that in 24 hours I'd been half way across the world, in Paris, in London, in Chicago, and now I was back to the mundane.  On Monday, I was back to my internship, halfway between Shelbyville and St. Louis.  I hated the guy I was working for, which is another tale in and of itself.  Because of that, I was going to start working in Pana, 20 minutes from Mom and Dad's house.  That meant I had two weeks with my new husband before I was only home on the weekends, and I was back to living with Mom and Dad.  This fact, by itself, made me so grateful for the honeymoon that Zac and I took.  We couldn't afford it, so thank you American Express, but it was worth every penny. 

So now you have learned more about me, more about my life.  I realize it's been in kind of like a bad film, where the timing of my posts in realation to the timing of the actual events is sort of mixed up and backward.  None the less, I hope you've enjoyed them.  Enjoyed Europe vicariously through Zac and I.  I hope one day we get back.  Have more time, more money, things better than work waiting for us at home.  Maybe, maybe not, but well, c'est la vie.