Sitting in Heathrow Airport, watching the seconds tick by as I wait for my flight home, which is still six hours away. I finally have time to reflect on the past seven and a half weeks, what they meant and all I did and saw and experienced. These past couple of days were so hectic, I didn’t have time to think about anything besides getting where we were going.
Yesterday morning, we toured Trinity College – saw the Old Library and the Book of Kells. It interested Elie but to me it was pretty boring. That’s okay, though – it was something to see to kill off our last few hours in Dublin.
The city buses in Dublin never run on schedule, so when we finally caught the bus to the airport, it was after waiting for a good 25 minutes outside the hostel. We were fine on timing, but a German girl waiting with us was cutting it awfully close to catch her flight, and was making us nervous by how nervous she was getting.
We arrived at Dublin Airport too early to check in, and to the news that our flight was delayed – first they said 25 minutes, then 50… we eventually took off an hour and a quarter late. Thankfully we called the Contiki basement and arranged to have our stored bags sent up to the hotel in London, or else we would have been stressing even more. Our checked luggage on the plane took forever to arrive – we initially thought Elie’s bag was lost. Ryanair has been, er, interesting.
We caught the Airbus into Central London and got to the hotel around 10:30 at night. Our bags were waiting for us, but the hotel had no record of our reservation. More headaches. We did get a room – paid for a triple but had no extra roommate, which was nice – and spent a couple of hours packing and re-packing and doing magic tricks to get everything to fit in our bags. Then we had a comfy four hours of sleep before having to wake up at 4:30am to get to Heathrow in time for Elie’s 9am flight to Israel.
Saying goodbye to Elie at the airport was hard, even though she’ll be home in 10 days. Still, after spending the past two months together, it’ll be weird not seeing her 24/7 for a while. Since then, I’ve pretty much just been killing time in the airport here, thinking about going home and how strange it will feel to be back. Aside from the obvious financial reasons, I’m not too sure why I’m even going back now at all. I’ve definitely caught the travel bug, and I can’t wait for my next trip, wherever it is.
Earlier, while Elie and I were waiting for her flight, she and I were listing all the places we went to and neither of us could believe it. Yes, there were days that didn’t go so well, but they were far outweighed by all the amazing things we saw and did and amazing people we met. This trip was an overwhelming success and I’m so glad I went!
What awaits at home? What other new experiences are in store? If I learned anything this summer, it’s that sometimes you have to get lost, change your mind, have plans go awry, or simply do something totally different in order to really have a great experience. I learned how easy it is to adapt when you expect the unexpected, and how many things I can do without – such as toilet paper, clean clothes, and home-cooked meals (though admittedly I’ll be glad to have those back again shortly).
So much of Europe is absolutely beautiful. A lot of it is ugly as well. And while a lot of the cities started to blur after a while, each place we visited was unique. This truly has been the trip of a lifetime, and I’ll remember it forever.
“It’s something unpredictable
but in the end is right
I hope you had the time of your life”