The last couple days were spent packing, cleaning out our cabins, spending last times with friends on board, and sitting around waiting to travel. On Thursday we had one last movie night with friends on the ship, Friday was one last outing with a big group of people at a local restaurant, and Saturday one last session of ping-pong! It was a lot of “lasts” and it was sad to say goodbye, especially when you keep running into everyone after you’ve said goodbye and have to keep saying it, that's what happens when you all live on the same ship! It was a beautiful community, a little hard to find alone time, but a wonderful amount of together time.
If you saw the last post with the video blog you know that we enjoyed Easter on the ship, and they really do it right! Big meals, yes, but also cool traditions that lead up to Easter Sunday. They had really set the mood by changing our normal community room, the International Lounge, into something that represented the garden of Gethsemane (not pictured because it was too dark). They put out most of the lights, aside from a green glow they had on some plants they had set in the middle.
The Academy kids read bits and passages from the scripture of when Jesus went to pray and the disciples fell asleep, just adding a certain realness to it by the ambient sounds of birds and crickets they had playing over the speaker. They also had a room set up like an upper room for the Passover. The room sat dark with only candles for light, they had taped up black paper with holes in it on the windows to make it look like stars.
There we went through a Seder meal and got talked through the reasons for each thing we ate, which all represent things from the first Passover and Israel's exodus from Egypt, as well as relate to things from the last supper and Jesus's part in the Passover. For instance dipping parsley into saltwater to represent both new life but also the tears shed by the Israelites during their slavery. It was definitely a cool experience doing Easter on the ship and we enjoyed all the different festivities (including the crafts where we sewed fabric book covers, see my last blog video for reference!)
I also had the opportunity to give blood! Every crew member that comes to serve is asked if they would donate to their blood bank. Since they have such a big crew, this is where they get the majority of their blood when they need it for operations. It was nice knowing that the blood I gave would go to such a good use and right there on the ship too.
All these things were great, but its the friends I met on board that I'll miss the most. We even met a couple people in just the last week we were there that we'd already felt like we'd known for so long! We are sad to say goodbye to both new and old friends on the ship, but we have so much to look forward too.
Thank you to Moïse for leaving this on my cabin door before we left. I’m gonna miss you, man.
After all of our goodbyes I officially started out "travel clock" which is how long it takes to get from leaving the ship to arriving at Kate's parent's house in Harrisonburg. If we were in any kind of transit, you'd better believe I counted it. It ended up being about a 30 hour trip in total. Our original transportation to the airport didn't show up, so we were stuck there waiting for about half an hour, people who had come out to say goodbye slowly petering out as the time ticked on, until someone came back with a vehicle and offered to drive us! They also stayed with us until we had checked in through security just to make sure we got on okay, thank you so much for that! Per the usual Guinea fashion as we waited to check our bags someone came up, asked for our passports, and walked off with them. This time I was a little more confident that we would get them back (and we did).
After we got our bags checked we headed over to security and ran our items through the scanner. Its hard to explain, but security seems both so much more lax (for example I didn't have to take out any liquids or computers before putting them through) but also so much more strict (like guards with assault rifles and one final check where they open your bags before you get on the plane and look through them). They also ask you to declare any money that you are taking with you, which they kind of ask in such a way that makes it seem like they're just going to take it from you and not give it back. We didn't have any, all I had was American and Euros and they were looking for money from their country.
Once we were on the plane, the pilot informed us that the AC stopped working on their way there and they were trying to fix it. For a good half an hour or so we sat int the sweltering airplane, using plane brochures as fans. As we sat there all of the power on the plane flicked off. All of it. Engines, lights, everything we could tell would get us home safely. Kate and I gave each other that "in case we die, I just want to know that I love you" look, you know the one. The power came back on about 30 seconds later or so with no explanation of why it turned off in the first place. We wondered if they would cancel the flight, but alas they did not! We hoped if they were confident enough to make it to Paris in one piece, then so were we. Our best guess was that they reset everything to get the AC working again. It was definitely working on the flight, as evidenced by Kate's almost immediate transformation from "I don't want to hold your hand because its so hot" to "I'm freezing, bring your hand over here to warm me up!" Those two things were literally probably about 2 minutes apart. Thank goodness for AC, because that would have been a very long flight!
We landed in Paris safely with a 7 hour layover awaiting us. We had played around with the idea of going into Paris to a cafe with the Eiffel Tower in view. To the point where I had all the directions printed out of which metros to take and all of that. As the time approached and due to some advice given to us on the ship, not to mention we were half an hour later than we expected and every hour counted, we decided to spend out layover lounging around the airport.
After we'd gotten through security we walked around out terminal and scouted out how we would spend out next 6 or so hours. We found an arcade, an "entertainment station" which was an tablet connected to a chair, and we may or may not have bought some perfume/cologne for the wedding day (when in Paris...). After that we found a small sofa-like waiting area and got ourselves a little nap before the next flight. Or I should say Kate got a 2 hour nap and I got 20 minutes. She's kind a pro at napping in any situation. I have much to learn.
In case you were wondering earlier why we had Euros it was in case we went out. We ended up spending them on a little breakfast at the airport. It wasn't quite like what it would be in the streets of Paris, but we made it work.
The time passed quickly and we were soon on our next flight to DC and then home from there! It didn't take long after we started a movie on the plane that Kate was out like a light.
The flight was good and long. We managed to fit in 3 movies each (Asterix and Obelix - together, Inside Out - for me and Christopher Robin - for Kate, and Smallfoot) and still had time to sleep, eat, and whatever else you do on a plane.
Here's a little bit from the plane:
All was well and good after we landed, we were set to pick up our luggage and greet Kate's parents who came to pick us up...and then we saw this.
My rough first guess was 2,000 people in line in front of us, it was probably off but I know it had to be more than 1,000! So 2 hours of standing in line later and we finally got to see Kate's family. Another 2 hour drive and we were home.
Being back home really is a beautiful thing, seeing family and friends we haven't seen in 2 months and breathing the fresh mountain air. I stayed the night there and headed back to my parent's house later the next day.. but not before making a little stop.
We are officially ready to be married with our marriage license in hand!
The 2 hour trip from her parent's to my parent's house where I'm staying was so refreshing. Driving after not driving so long by itself is a weird sensation. It sort of feels like you're not the one driving, until you realize that you are and you should be paying much more attention to what you're doing. After an hour or so I was pretty used to it again. I had my windows down, it was a beautiful day, and everything was so green. So so green. You really don't realize how much you miss the green until you've been away for so long. This was also the first time I'd been truly alone in 2 months. Just me, the road, and a CD I forgot I had in my car playing on repeat. I drove past a house with someone out front mowing the grass and that smell hit me hard. My nose just about melted into my mouth it smelled so fresh. I smiled and thought of how fortunate we are to live in a place with mountains, water, trees, leaves, grass, and everything in between. I'm going to miss the ship, the people, and the work we did; I'm happy to be home.
If you've made it this far you are one of my biggest fans! Thank you so much for reading and keeping up with our big adventure. Now on to our biggest one yet as we finish getting ready for the wedding in 2 weeks!