Journey Home

Dear Brenna,

You were my traveling charm. Now that we are not on the same train back, though, there is a forest fire or a “burning bush” (according to the people here who speak a little English) along the tracks and I am stuck in the middle of nowhere somewhere in between Creil and Paris. It’s unfortunate, we were so close: 10 minutes by train!

It was a very early morning as it was, flight on Ryan air at 5:55 in the morning to Beauvais, to catch a train ultimately to Metz getting home by 4:00. It was a rushed morning because the man in charge of the hostel provided misleading directions to get to the airport this morning. We saw a beautiful sunrise up in the air, but that was all because I slept quite quickly. Brenna’s host for the night met us at the train station and provided us a tummy warming breakfast! The train station was a short walk through a washed down but still charming town. Alas… what is my fortune! We will depart again in a time that is yet undetermined. France, I had such faith in your train system. Now you dump me in the middle of nowhere with a guy from Nigeria who is the only person I could find to speak English and explain the situation in clearer details. He has just confessed I have captured his heart because I speak English so fluently, and that he wants to set his life for me, and wait for me. He wants to buy me a phone so he can contact me and give me the world. I am dumbfounded… but yes… it is true; foreigners either love or hate Americans. I assure you there is no in between. He has an apartment in Creil and he would be more than happy to accommodate me for the night. This is one offer I will not take up. Great! The train should be departing in 20 minutes. Hopefully I will make the next connection to Metz then. Pray that I don’t get stuck in Paris tonight. I have a large desire to sleep in my own bed, eat some homemade food, and do differential equations homework that has proved to space consuming for train rides.

P.S. Dad, I met a girl today who is just heading home from an extended sailing adventure. She was working on a sailboat and had originally had plans to sail around the Mediterranean. Due to weather the trip didn’t go as planned but still sounded so exciting! I thought you might appreciate that story a little. Maybe I should stick to traveling to inland places and save coastal locations for a journey of sailing. I think I need to start making more networks to enable more adventures in the future.

 Traveling repels me today. The gate you walk through to get onto the metro closed hard on my suitcase. I’m glad it didn’t break it, and luckily someone came by to get it unstuck before too long, and hand it over to me. Normally you would then go ahead and discard the ticket once you get through the gate, but luckily this time I didn’t; because upon exiting the metro there were workers checking for the tickets. A 25e fine for not having proof of one! Luckily I got on the train to Luxembourg (that stops to Metz on the way) I had 20 minutes to spare! Woot!