Heading down the Home Stretch

             So… things here in Provo are pretty much winding down.  There are only 2 weeks left til the end of the semester.  I have 4 exams out of 9 out of the way, and now I only have morning classes on Tuesday and Thursday.  Really there is nothing much I have to focus on except getting homework done and end of year assignments and extra credit turned in on time… oh yeah, and finding a job.  I’m headed back home to Cincinnati this summer to see and visit with all my friends and family back there, and to work my bum off to make some money, and maybe have some fun too.  Besides that there’s really not much to tell, except that I realize I haven’t written anything about my trip at the end of the program in Spain…. And there is plenty to tell…

I went to Paris at 4 on the last day of the program.  It was ok because classes had gotten done with the week before.  I found my way through the airport and onto the train with relative ease, even though people don’t really speak a lot of English… or just don’t want to.  But I made it to the friend’s house I was staying at with out a lot of fuss.  The metro system in Paris is great, and I used it all over the place.  Saturday morning (the day after I got there) I bought some berries and mandarin oranges and yogurt, and a baguette at Paul’s (a really, really good French bread shop).  Then I made a cheese sandwich and walked along the Seine until I couldn’t feel my legs anymore and headed into the Metro to warm up and ride to Le Tour Eiffel.  I spent the whole afternoon wandering around the second and third decks, and I went to the museum/movie thing they have in it and learned all about it, and it’s pretty dang cool.  Later I went shopping in Les Halles, which is a huge shopping center all underground!  The next day I went to church in French, and it was kinda hard to follow, but it still felt like church.  Later that night we went to a Christmas church special out in Versailles, and before it started we hurried and peered into the darkened gardens and grounds of the palace, which is more like a mini city.  It was beautiful even in the dark; I just wish I’d had time to see it during the daylight.  The next day I bought a day pass for the metro and Jorge, Shane and I toured Monmatre, Sacre Couer, L’Opera de Garnier, the Egyptian obelisk south east the end of Les Champs Elysees and later L’Arc de Triomphe at the other end, when the whole length of the street was lit up with Chrismas lights in the trees.   It was a really long and fun day.  We went to the Louvre for a few hours, but I missed seeing the Mona Lisa because they were closing and kicking people out right when we got to the end of the museum wing to see it… I was a little upset….  And the next day I went back to Spain, after waiting 5 hours in the airport because I was quite early getting there, and my plane was quite late.

I stayed in a hostal by my church’s temple in Madrid for 4 days before I left Spain… and it was great.  I got to know to really cool girls from Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and I got to spend a few more days with my friends from Alcala before I finally had to go home.  I got on the plane in Barajas Airport after a warm hug from a dear friend and a rather sad good bye.  I pressed my nose against the glass of my window-side seat to look out at the last beautiful Spanish sunset I would see for a long time… and I watched until we were over the Cantabric sea and nearing England before I would finally concede that the sunset really was over and the last light of Spain was gone from my eyes… gone, but not lost, and certainly not forgotten.

       That night I stepped out of the plane and into a drizzly London night.  It was really nice to not have to worry about my luggage, since it was only a layover in London (A 14 hour layover!)  I decided to leave the airport and ride the tube into downtown, but of course I packed my umbrella in my suitcase.  I got off at Piccadilly Circus and it was raining pretty hard.  I decided to visit main stations, like King’s Cross, which is where Trafalgar Square is found, and Charring Cross, and then I got back on the tube and returned to the airport.  I made a quick stop at Hyde Park Corner near Buckingham Palace and it was equally as rainy there.  After I got back to the airport I slept on a bench… well dozed on a bench, cause I was getting sick and really couldn’t sleep very well due to coughing.  When I finally got into the area by my gate it was 6 am, and I was dead.  I finally went and sat looking out the window at my plane at 9 am, when the gate was finally announced.  And I woke up at 11:30, an hour and 45 minutes after my plane had left!!!  I had even missed all the announcements saying they were leaving, and this was my last warning, and they were now taking my  bags off the plane… and I was only 10 feet away from the door the whole time!

            But it’s all ok because the nice British Airways lady helped me get on the very next flight, and I got home at the same time I would’ve anyway.  And then there was fun trying to find my bags because somehow one had gotten to Cincinnati even before I did, and the second was still on the other side of the Atlantic in Heathrow airport.  That bag finally arrived at the Cincinnati airport 2 nights before Christmas, and that’s when the snow hit.  So, my bag spent the weekend at the airport, and I spent a very nice and quiet Christmas at home with my dad and step-mom. 

Then I headed out to Utah for school again… and you know the story from there.

Love and Hugs,             Rachel