Friday, June 17, 2011

Europe!!

My trip to Europe was so amazing and now that I am home I can definitely appreciate it more.
First of all... I never remember how terrified I am of flying until the plane is taking off. By then it is to late and I realize that I have 9 1/2 hours of torture ahead of me. Usually, people who are afraid of flying are only afraid of one thing, like crashing or hijacking or maybe they are claustrophobic. For me, its ALL OF THE ABOVE!! It didn't help that within the first 20 min, once the seat belt signs were turned off, this guy comes to the back of plane (where I was sitting) and tells the flight attendant that he wants "an F***ing seat away from all the F***ing kids. Whats my first thought?? TERRORIST. I would have gladly given up my seat to make him happy if I wasn't surrounded by children either. Then they turn the movie on. Great, im thinking, something to distract me from the people and the closed in environment and the bumps. Too bad it shuts off after 10 minutes. I don't care what kind of glitch it was... I just wanted to pass out and not wake up until the end of the flight. I popped some graval. Do you think that helped??? NOPE. I slept for maybe 20 min but finally the plane was descending which calms me down a little bit, until I start thinking what if the landing gear is broken and we can't land?? Combined with the weird noises and my ears popping and crying children I just want to be on the ground... safe on the ground. We do land safely but now I only have 1 hour until my next connection and I still have to get my luggage and go through customs. Im running through an airport where I don't speak the language waiting for my bags (and of course panicking that the airlines lost them and already planning out in my mind a budget for replacing everything). I get through customs, check in for my next flight and I still have 40 min until my connection leaves. I am finally calm, all I have to do is get through security and then I have tons of time... WRONG, I have to go through passport control which has a huge lineup. The whole time I am waiting I'm wishing I was an EU citizen because they don't have a line. I get through in 20 min and now only have 20 min to get through security... My flight is already boarding I just assumed that the line for security will be just as long as the line for passport control but it wasn't. I got through in 5 min, walked to my gate, gave them my ticket and was on my way onto the airplane when I heard the last boarding call for my flight. It sounded like it had a stop before my final destination but it didn't make sense, that stop was in South America... no where near Europe. I get on the plane and ask the flight attendant if I am on the right flight. She looks at my ticket, asks me where Im going and says "you are the first stop."  Then of course we take off and land again so Im panicking the whole time but I finally make it to my final destination and meet up with my friend!!!
The week I was there I was pretty panic free... except for the time when I woke up in the middle of the night from the rain outside and couldn't help thinking about how much rain this country usually gets and what if the city floods... on and on!! One night when we were downtown there were huge protests and riots. That got me really scared... what if they got violent, I wasn't staying to far away from all this was taking place, plus there were some bombings in a country not that far away. What if these riots turned into bombings???
Week 2 was in my second destination and yes... I had to take another airplane to get there. Once I got there I was with family though so my comfort bubble was pretty big. Once we left the airport though, this family member informed me that another family member back home had a heart attack. WHAT? While I'm on the other side of the world?? I was reassured that everyone was ok, the heart attack was minor and everything would be ok. Every night when I went to bed though, I couldn't help thinking what I would do if I had to go back early, if an emergency happened.
Besides that, and the volcano erupting in Iceland that was cancelling flights all across Europe, the second half of my trip was pretty good. And no, my flight did not get cancelled but I was panicking that it would. I don't really know why considering I would be able to postpone work if I got to stay in Europe a little longer. On my flight home I couldn't stop looking out the window making sure we weren't going over the erupting volcano.
Oh well, I am home safe and sound now and everyone is doing fine!!!!

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