There's No Place Like Home

I’m back and exhausted! I’ll post a few pics soon but a lot of them are on my friend’s camera. Most importantly…I made top ten percent! Barely, but I did it and I don’t even know how to tell you how relieved and happy I am. Thinking about how awful last year was, and how I managed to get through and change my life and come out on the other side exactly where I wanted, makes me want to cry. In the best way.
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Horror story: On the way back from Rome, our flight got delayed for four hours. We had gotten up at four and were exhausted, and I started crying on the airplane because I was so frustrated and tired. Then this lovely Italian lady named Rosie mothered me and fed me a granola bar and we talked all the way back to New York, and I met her sons at the airport and she told me she wished she had a daughter like me. (She met her husband in Italy and knew right away, and they got married almost immediately and are still happy thirty-eight years later, which is beautiful.)
Anyway, back to the horror. So then, even after running flat out through JFK with our suitcases, we still missed our Dallas flight, and I started crying again and so American Airlines put us on standby on a flight out of Laguardia. So we took a taxi and he drove crazy to get us there, speeding down exit lanes and then cutting people off to get back on the freeway, and the desk lady told us we might not get on (there were 84 standby passengers). So Yara begged, and I was still crying, and then we took her a pretzel and begged some more. And then magically our name popped up to the top of the list and we got on the plane and finally, finally got home, and my boyfriend scooped me up and twirled me and kissed me and I squealed and laughed, and everyone in the baggage claim stared at us.
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But, and there’s more to come later, I’ve never had such a great vacation. I love my best friend in a way I love few other people, and I’m lucky to have her. We celebrate the best qualities in each other at the same time we accept all the warts, and so travel together was amazing. We laughed the whole time, spent all day every day together and still talked each night till two in the morning.
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Paris was my favorite city, London was very American, and Rome…ugh. I’ll be honest and say I did not like Rome and never want to go back. It was filthy and smelly and the men were very aggressive, and once you run out of ruins there’s not a lot to do. But later I’ll tell you about running around Paris, and an amazing little Sardinian restaurant off the Spanish Steps in Rome, and the bustle of London. Now I’m taking my jet lag back to bed.