Departing for France...

This morning, at around 2AM, my family and I woke up to go to the first airport... Even though I'm now in my hotel room in New York, it's still hard to believe that this is real. I had a huge problem this morning before we had even left the house: I had lost my wallet. Despite my several attempts to find it... in my room, in the car, in the house, at the last gas station I went to, we could not find it. It gave me this sinking feeling in my chest... I had a lot of money in there... not to mention the debit card, my driver's license, etc. It wasn't until I was being checked in the security at the first airport that I had found it- beneath my laptop at the bottom of my laptop case/carry-on (a place in which my mom and I both searched several times).. It was such a relief to have found it, and then I could focus on the first stages on homesickness...

You see, I didn't really know what to expect in the way of 'homesickness'. I didn't know what I was going to experience, or how, when, or anything for that matter... It came to me in waves of feeling unprepared- losing my wallet, for instance. Also, on the first plane ride, it hit me that I wouldn't be going home for 10 1/2 months... I [finally] realized that this wasn't like my weekend trip to Cedar Point the previous weekend (the one in which I forgot my bathing suit, toothbrush, a pair of sandals...); this was it. I had to trust myself more than usual.. trust that I had packed everything I needed.

So when I arrived in New York, I realized something else: I was carrying everything I would be relying on for ten months... After I claimed my baggage, I had to navigate through this side of New York (Queens, I think). I had to find this 'airtrain', find these phones one uses to call a shuttle for one's hotel, and make it there. I was really lost for a lot of this. And as I was lugging my suitcase around, which was, by the way, two pounds overweight.. a charge of $125.00 that the nice guy at the airport didn't make me pay, it hit me that I was carrying everything I would rely on... A hard to describe homesickness..

So now I'm at my hotel in New York. We're staying here for one night, and leaving for France tomorrow! I am excited, nervous, anxious, happy, sad, scared-- everything. It's incredible.