carol.

Setting off at 7PM Tuesday night from Byron Court, I caught a train from London to Manchester, then a plane from Manchester to Munich, and finally a flight from Munich to JFK. I landed at 3PM today and got home at 4PM. It’s never felt so good to be home.

Thank you, Manchester! It was a pleasure to visit you for 8 hours!

Sometimes you need to go East to head West.

Some highlights of my trip:

• Jess and Chris are the best with helping us with our (okay, really only my) luggage
• sitting on the floor of the train the entire ride because people were just too bitchy and frustrated for me to deal with
• hauling my heavy ass luggage (big ups to Dio for helping me with it)
• thinking Dio missed the train because I told him to move my luggage
• the super nice train conductors that kept us informed along the way
• making friends with other travel abroad students that had been stranded
• freaking out because we thought our flight was canceled
• the super nice man at the Lufthansa counter that didn’t charge me for overweight baggage (my heaviest was 32kg, 9kg over the normal allowance); he just smiled when I told him I had been prepared to pay the entire time and told me to save my money to spend on something else
• finding out my plane ticket included 2 check-in bags
• my carry-on weighing muchhhh less than I anticipated
• finally witnessing a take-off (seriously the first time ever)
• crying when we took off from Manchester, because there was hope
• delayed take off from Munich, which I slept through
• awesome movies on the Lufthansa flight from Munich (I watched “Eat, Pray, Love,” “Going the Distance,” and “Dinner for Schmucks”. They also had “Inception” and “Salt” playing on board.)
• finally trying Bounty and realizing it’s my favorite candy bar
• landing in JFK earlier than anticipated despite the delay
• crying when we landed at JFK
• realizing everything ran hella smoothly today
• seeing my parents for the first time in months

It seems that all it took was really getting out of London. That was a super smart decision on our part for today, with snow being forecasted again for Wednesday in London. But from what I’ve been reading and seeing, things are finally picking up at Heathrow and more flights are taking off each day. I’ve got my fingers crossed for everyone still in London; you’re all going to make it out just fine.

I’ve just been through the worst day of my life. Flight canceled. Dad had to book me another flight for Monday evening. Paid crazy ridiculous costs. Flying by myself. I have 3 pieces of luggage. They all weigh a ton. Stayed in Heathrow for almost 12 hours. They didn’t tell us it was canceled until 7 hours into my stay. Tube was packed. My luggage was situated on the wrong side of the train. Rooms ran out in Guilford. Dragged my stuff to Byron. Room is dirty as fuck. I haven’t eaten since 3ish.

Thank you London for a great ending to the semester. SIKE.