Goodbye Europe, HELLO TEXAS!

After my nice little nap I was able to squeeze in overnight, we then loaded the coaches to airport at 3am. It’s hard on your body to get up at be active at 3am after only sleeping like three hours. I heard a lot people mention that they didn’t feel good simply because of a weird sleeping schedule. We attempted to load all of the luggage onto the coaches, but these coaches were smaller and therefore about 25 whole bags wouldn’t fit in them. This caused us to have to wait nearly another hour on a trailer that would attach to the back of our coach. As soon as we finally left the hotel, I was fast asleep on the silent coach.

The drive to the Zurich airport wasn’t more than about 45 minutes so we arrived a little after 5am, when the airport check-in opened. It seems to me that European airports are quite inefficient when it comes to managing lines. Either that or we overwhelm them with 80 of us at one time, haha. When I tried to check my two bags, the lady working the check-in counter told me I had a special kind of ticket (different from everyone else’s) and that I would only be allowed to check one bag. After I began to tell her there is no way that could possibly be right and I started raising a slight fuss, Dr. Dan stepped in to save the day! He informed the lady that he is the travel agent responsible for this group’s booking, and that there is no way that my ticket could have that kind of restriction because it is an international flight. She still persisted and continued to argue with him, and then Dr. Dan informed her that we didn’t even book this flight in particular. I was re-booked by British Airways just last week to accommodate my former travel plans that were affected by the current BA strike. Then she began to understand and made a few more phone calls and allowed me to check my second duffel bag. I still had to pay a heavy bag fee of 50 Swiss Francs because one of my checked bags was 5 kilos over the max weight limit.

By this time it was nearly 6:10am, and boarding for our flight was supposed to close at 6:20am. I rushed myself through security, onto the tram, through the terminal, and to the gate only to discover that they hadn’t started boarding the plane at all. Turns out British Airways ended up delaying our flight by nearly 30 minutes because of the slow check-in procedures outside of security. Even after I checked my bag, there was still at least 15 people from our trip in line behind me waiting to check-in and get their boarding passes.

The plane finally took off for what was about a 1.5-2 hour flight to London. We landed and had to go through security again upon entering Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Once we were inside, it was AMAZING! Terminal 5 at Heathrow is by far the coolest airport I have ever been to! There are mini-Harrods, great shopping, and wonderful restaurants. Since it was only 9 am London time I wasn’t in the mood for heavy food, so I just grabbed a ready-made sandwich at Pret a Manger for old times sake. As tempting as it was, I only ate half while we were waiting for our flight, and saved the other half for what would prove to be a tasty meal during the 10-hour flight back to Houston. Our flight was delayed (again), this time due to the strike and the fact that they couldn’t scrounge up enough crew members to work our flight. (awesome... --sarcasm included).

I was so excited to finally take off and know that the next time we land I’ll be back in the great state of Texas. The flight was long, but not nearly as long as the flight to London seemed. The difference was that I slept nearly 4 hours on this flight and barely any on the first one. When we finally landed and the pilot said “Welcome to Houston,” I found it amusing how nearly our entire study abroad group applauded and cheered at what was simply a routine landing just because we were all so excited to be back in Texas. I couldn’t stop smiling when I was deplaning, but that smile faded fast however when we saw just how long the line at immigration was. After waiting for over 30 minutes in a sea of around 300 people, we were processed and I was able to get my luggage. After a quick run through at customs, I walked through the big double doors of IAH’s Terminal E and into Brad’s arms and I was home. I had a wonderful journey on this trip. I learned so much about culture, people, life, and myself. It’s an experience that I’m so very grateful for, but nothing beats home sweet home! ☺


oh ps: this is a picture from the plane's individual tv units that i took during the flight. In route to Houston, Europeans have no other description for humid houston than "HOT". haha, most all of us found a good amount of amusement out of that.

Last Day In Europe!

So strange. This morning was my last time to wake up and know I was going to be exploring a European city on this trip. Truthfully though, I’m very ready to come back home. This trip has been a wonderful life experience, but nothing beats lying in the arms of the one that I love simply just watching TV.

We didn’t even have to leave the hotel for our last two business meetings this morning. Bucherer Retail was first. Besides the room being exceptionally hot and stuffy, the presentation wasn’t half bad. I had already gone there to buy my Swiss Army knives yesterday, so I felt a little extra connection to the store. After a small break, Johnson & Johnson was next. That presentation however was exceptionally boring. I felt like the speaker was all over the place and it was hard to stay focused on him during his presentation.

After both presentations were finished, Dr. Mac and Dr. Dan had some last minute debriefing instructions for us before we were released for our last day in Europe. For lunch, a large group of study abroaders went across the Chapel Bridge to Mr. Pickwick’s Pub and had some pub food. I heard all the food there was good, so I was excited to get a really good cheeseburger. Unfortunately, there was some kind of weird sauce on my burger and the cheese had a weird kick to it. I barely ate half of my burger if that and didn’t order any fries to save money. I also haven’t ordered an alcoholic drink since France I think, solely for the reason of conserving money.

We left Mr. Pickwick’s Pub, took some pictures by the Chapel Bridge, watched the wild swans swim around, and then headed off to do some last minute errands around Lucerne before we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the dessert cruise. I bought an assortment of Swiss Chocolate at Bucherer while other people bought more Longchamp bags, more Swiss Army knives, and even a few nice Swiss watches.

One last thing on our to-do list in Lucerne was to walk to the giant lion monument carved into the side of a stone wall. It was so much larger and more detailed than I was envisioning it to be. We took a few pictures, and Callen, CJ, Kinsey, and I all tossed coins into the pond in front of the monument after we made wishes. I don’t really know if it was a ritual or not, but there were some coins in the bottom of the pond, so we figure why not?! Wishing on an ancient lion can’t hurt!

CJ, Kinsey, and I all walked back to the hotel to shower and get all done up for the final group event of the trip, the dessert dinner cruise on Lake Lucerne. Kinsey was wonderful and curled several of the girls hair (including mine). It looked fabulous! After weeks of not trying to get overly done up for a night out, it was nice to feel pretty and see how gorgeous everyone else looked as well!

The cruise was SO MUCH FUN! We had a private boat rented out just for our study abroad group. The first two rounds of drinks were free, so white wine was my beverage of choice! It was delicious! From the moment we all stepped onto the boat it was just a non-stop photo session. We sang the war hymn, whooped!, laughed, hugged, and just had a great night reflecting on all of the memories we made throughout the past month and the friends that will come back with us to A&M. The view of the shoreline was unmatched and the sunset in particular was sublime! I was sad to see such an amazing night end. It was tied with the Austrian dinner as being the most enjoyable evening activity that we did on the entire trip.




Sadly though, the night had to end. We walked back to the hotel at around 10:30pm, and having already packed my bags completely during the afternoon, I was able to go straight to bed by about 11 o’clock. I was one of the lucky few that actually was able to squeeze in a few hours of sleep before we had to load the coaches for the airport in the middle of the night. I set my alarm for 2:15am, so I could be downstairs at around 2:50am to board the coach. Naptime for me!