The Finale (sadly.)

I didn't want to end this entire experience with a bad note... so I shall write one more journal entry.

 There have definitely been some really sad things that happened along the journey of the last three months, but the absolutely amazing experiences that I have been fortunate enough to undertake far outweigh the missteps. Yes, I lost a good friendship that I had with my professor, which I deeply regret, and I miss being able to talk to. I saw him in the hallway today and he walked past me like I had never existed... and since it was the first time that I had seen him in four months... it was kind of hard. But as we learn through development and growth, sometimes things happen that you have absolutely no control over and you simply cannot blame yourself. All you can do is move forward and work towards a brighter future.... and with my friends and family by my side... it promises to be incredibly bright.

It's been difficult adjusting to being home. I miss so many things that I didn't even realize I had. It always lights a smile on my face to see an email from Poland or a Skype IM from Spain. I now have friends all over the globe, which is not something that many 21-year-olds can boast. I have been blessed beyond belief, not only with the experience of this summer - learning how to cook broccoli to perfection, or that they really DO check your tram tickets for a time stamp, or that traveling to an extremely foreign culture is equal parts nerve wracking and exciting, and then you get there and have an indescribable high. Home is lonely though. I never knew I could be with someone 23 hours a day for 86 days straight and not get tired of them, but it's possible. Write me down in the Guinness Book of World Records. Now I don't even know how to be alone. Ash will leave the living room and in my head I'll be screaming "Don't leave me!! I need human contact!" Hahah I'm silly. But I make Courtney spend the night and I go over there a lot, too. It seems I've found a new fixture in my life... the L-squared I've grown to know and love. Friends really are the family we choose.

You don't realize how much you impact other peoples' lives.. even in the tiniest ways. I cannot even begin to count the sheer volume of my friends and acquaintances and PARENTS who have come up to me and said "I religiously read your blog" or "It was great seeing all of your adventures unfold through Facebook photographs." I know, now, that I have a incredible network of people rooting for me to succeed. It's invigorating and stimulating and it feels... quite frankly... wonderful. Life can be such a scary thing and everyone needs a solid foundation on which to build. I'm lucky to have found that in Birmingham and Florida... I'm just plain lucky.

Most days I'll be doing something random and insignificant and suddenly flash back to a memory of this summer. I haven't taken the time to read my personal journal or my blog yet, but I still have so many memories that are fresh in my mind and snap me back across the Atlantic. I went to lunch with a friend, Paul Sparkman, and a stray mushroom in my soup made me launch into a random European story about shopping at Andre and a crazy old Polish lady yelling mercilessly at Courtney over spilled redbull in a glass soda jar. A boy at a frat party two weekends ago asked me what the craziest thing I had done this summer was.... and I took about four minutes flipping through snapshots in my mind, trying to figure out what crazy thing really deserved the number one spot. A fallen photograph in my room from last year reminded me of the night Courtney and I desperately jumped on the metro in Paris to go see the lit-up Eiffel tower and ended up only catching a glimpse from the coach on a bridge over the Seine, but not before we purchased the world's most delicious chocolate ice cream from the McDonalds on the Champs Elysees. The metros cut off and all of these people (tourists) were waiting for the next train, which wasn't going to come until 5:45 a.m., but nobody could read the signs in french, except for me, and nobody believed me when I told them there were not any more trains coming... so Courtney and I just forsoke all those dumb people (haha joke) and ran off to try to make a different connection. That didn't work, of course, and we ended up at the Arc d'Triumph; me, desperately trying to tell a cab driver, in french, that I had no idea where our hotel was but that it was near a certain metro stop and we needed to be taken there.... and befriended a nice young American guy in a Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt (and aren't they the best?) who lent us his map so I could affirm my crazy directions to the Jamaican driver with avid pointing at the spot on the grid. We gathered about 100 Euro for the ride, and I was worried it wouldn't be enough... and then it ended up being six dollars. Oh the joys and the tribulations.... and the smiles. How could one photograph evoke so much? Where will I store all these anecdotes to assure they never disappear? How can I guarantee that I never lose a single detail?

This summer has merely reconfirmed my beliefs that I want to go overseas and save the world - practice medicine in north African and do what I can to help who I can. There is nothing that gives me more pleasure in the world than connecting with people... and this summer is a testament to that. I can't wait to start chasing after my dreams... really start.

But then again, there is no time like the present.

Thank you all for being such a wonderful audience this summer. It's been lovely to express myself through the written word and just get my thoughts out there. Even if they aren't always the most well formulated... if I use commas far too often and say "incredible" about fifteen million times an entry... thanks for putting up with me. Sharing everything I've been through somehow makes the last three months even more real.... and I'd like to believe it's something that all of us will never forget.

Our final destination...

Well.... we made it to Warsaw (barely) safely.

This day started at 6 a.m., after three hours of sleep due to last minute packing. All of our luggage had been dragged outside and we had paid for the four days in August that we stayed in our dorm, when the maid said she wanted to do an inspection... and then proceeded to make us get down on our hands in knees with Mr. Proper to scrub everything to a sparkling sheen. I'm not exactly sure WHY they have maids if we're the ones doing the cleaning.... but we had to furiously clean at top speed to get out the door on time to catch our train to Warsaw. She even thought we stole half a lamp. Half a lamp that wouldn't even work in America because of the current and European plugs. Yes, I find it likely.

The drive there turned into an ordeal in itself. There was construction everywhere, and traffic moved more than half the trip at a snail's pace. And considering that our babysitter, Zibi, got a speeding ticket last time he drove us around, he refused to go a kilometer over the limit... although I don't blame him.

To purchase train tickets, we had to wait 20 minutes behind an old lady yelling at the ticket attendant in the one window where they actually sold regional tickets, only to see her walk away without purchasing a thing. We were late already and had to rush our massive amounts of luggage onto the tiny door opening of our second class coach. Thank GOODNESS Zibi was there to be the brawn behind our efforts. 

Ten hours on the train, which I slept through, thankfully, deposited us in Warsaw. The four girls had to come up with a plan to move all of our luggage from the train to the platform in a minimal amount of time because the train only stops for about two minutes in each station. Two stations before I knew we were slated to get off, we started a "baggage relay" line down the corrider and into the little compartment between coaches. Only we had a little bit too much luggage, and so it spilled over into the area by the disembarking platform, along with our four bodies. And of course, as fate always seems to love to taunt Courtney and I, every ornery, old lady who lives in the country of Poland decided to try to exit in our one doorway, and thought either that it would be helpful to yell at us relentlessly in Polish, or just found it satisfying. Either way, I was about to just open my mouth and retort back when Kristen pointed a strong finger at the other, very available, exit at the other end of the coach and shooed the old ladies on their way.

So we disembarked in Warzsawa Centralna and started the search for our hotel. It was 800 meters from the train station, which I quickly discovered is almost half a mile. We left the two girls sitting in the terminal, which a cell phone, to watch half the luggage while I tried to find our hotel. I had directions but I wasn't sure exactly how far it would be. And as I peered down a side street, a man in a car pulled up alongside me and said "Hey Beautiful, get in the car." I declined, quickly, but he kept talking to me in english and trying to convince me to get in the car with him. 

After the harder 800 meters of my life (I must have been carrying at least 80 pounds), we spotted the wonderful green glow of the Hotel Camponile. We quickly checked in, because I was really worried about the safety of the two other girls, and found our room. There was literally a haphazard pile of our stuff strewn across the room as we each threw off our bags and grabbed a jacket to go find Sonda and Kristin.

Oh! I forgot to mention that we didn't realize there would be a food trolley on the train, so nobody ate ANYTHING from 7:45 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. this evening. When we finally made it back to Sonda and Kristin, Sonda stood up and almost passed out from a lack of nourishment and too much excitement. Thank goodness for McDonalds. I have never seen four girls eat hamburgers and french fries so quickly in my life.

But the fun didn't stop there. Sonda has a knife that she carries with her at all times just in case. And this evening, while they were alone waiting for us, a man grabbed Kristin's hand.... the hand which thank goodness had a knife in it... and it scared him off. And there was apparently a huge fight in front of them which ended in a man chasing a girl away while swinging a hammer at her.

I wasn't about to risk anything else happening to us, so we grabbed a taxi for the remaining luggage and finally arrived, all four, at the hotel. But check in for Kristin wasn't as smooth as for us... and they lost her reservation. It's not the first time the Polish have lost our reservations, including for a rented car, a hostel, and various hotels... but it doesn't make it any less stressful or downright annoying. That, and the fact that they never take credit cards and always ask for smaller bills or exact change. I'm just not used to carrying around 15 pounds of change in my butt pocket. But, after fighting with the hotel clerk and showing her the conformation number for the hotel booking, Kristin and Sonda finally got into their rooms too, and we are now all safely settled in. Let's hope there isn't a bombing tonight or a plane crash tomorrow.

There were more than a couple of times tonight that I felt uncomfortable. Thank goodness I'm a very well experienced traveler and Courtney has been to more than her fair share of exotic places because if we had been four novice travelers in this foreign environment, especially with the language barrier, it would have been insane. I can almost guarantee that something bad would have happened somewhere along the way.

But we come home tomorrow. All of us are in good moods and excited about the clean beds and plush towels. And to be all together, and in one piece.

It has been an insane day.

Goodnight darlings.

Return is near

This morning marks the beginning of the end.

We move out of the Czech Republic today (at 7:30 a.m.), spend all day on a train to Warsaw, and then take plane from Poland to American tomorrow at noon. 

Yay yay yay!!!

That means I can use my cell phone in a little more than a day... and that I'm finally returning to American soil.

I've missed you guys!