Au Revoir, France

After a very long day of flying and making connections on Wednesday I finally made it home late in the evening, more than 20 hours after I had started from Bordeaux. I was pretty tired of security, customs, waiting and more waiting at airports, and the long, long time of sitting on planes. The security in London on Wednesday was very tight, so I can only imagine what it is now. I have never had to go through so much security in one airport at any one time before. I think we went through at least two security checks before actually getting to the gate where another check was performed before we were allowed into our gate's waiting area. Customs at Raleigh/Durham was a very long process, and we were subjected to several security checks there as well since we had to get our baggage, go through customs and then re-check it for our flight here. This is nothing, however, compared to what people are going through today, and much more what they went through yesterday. I am so grateful to have been on one of the last American Airlines flights from London before the arrests were made there. I can't imagine the horrors of trying to get home in the aftermath and confusion. We would have made it, certainly, but with a lot of difficulty. Also, I would have been upset to have not been able to take my electronics and extra travel comforts on board, and to have not been able to keep my bag with gifts and valuables with me on the plane. But it didn't happen to me, thankfully; I am here and still trying to get my body back on Central time and trying to adjust to pastry and French food withdrawal (not easy to go cold-turkey, let me tell you!) and also attemtping to adjust to the heat from which I was mercifully free from for over two weeks.

I will continue to post pictures and tales of life in France as I have time. I am very behind due to many problems posting with Blogger while overseas. I ceased to count all of the posts I lost in cyberspace and which I had no inclination to write all over again after having spent so much time on them in the first place before losing them to the great unknown and unretrievable cyberworld. In the meantime, I am spending time with my family and readjusting to Texas life, weather and food. :-)