One Close to Another, Part 1: Arrival

I moved on to a close asisde from General Seminary's yesterday. It's much smaller, but there is a cute little garden. I'm at the American Cathedral in Paris! I got here about 2:30 yesterday afternoon and have had a good time thus far. I can't believe it's 9:30 here. I'm going to make myself go to bed soon to fight jet lag stuff. I'll try to keep this brief but will probably fail.

Getting here was something of a disaster except it wasn't. I was hyper stressed because some things got a little out of line, but everything worked out and I made it. I had to go to a doctor before I left and that took more than twice as long as I expected between wait time and time spent with a healthcare professional. Then I was late getting Mom and still needed to throw stuff into my suitcase. We got the stuff and I opted to take the Groome shuttle that was 30 minutes later than my initial plan, and Mom and I got to have lunch, which was nice.

I got to Atlanta sooner than I'd planned given the new shuttle, and that was a big relief. We boarded late, but left on time. My flight to Barcelona was great. I watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and cried within the first few minutes. There will be another blog post about it coming, as soon as I see it and can take some notes. And then I slept. I woke up in Barcelona and commenced my second non-crisis.

Flying here with baggage is a lot easier than flying to Tuxtla. In Tuxtla I had to pick up my bags and re-check them. Here I did not, they went all the way to CDG with me...except I hadn't believed the desk agent in Atlanta when she said they would be in Paris, so I waited and looked for my bag. I finally realized it wasn't coming and then I went through security again and then sprinted down my terminal to get to my gate on time.

I made it and my flight was a breeze. I slept heavily through a good part of it. I woke up to the flight attendant nudging me to put my seat back up. My bag came relatively quickly, I called mom to check in, and I was on the RER without incident. When I got off the train I looked at a map and said, "So I have to cross the bridge and just keep going." When I got above ground I could see the spire and there was no question about where I was going. And so I went, thankful that I'd only been allowed to check one bag. While packing for three and a half months with vestments in a checked bag and carry on is potentially difficult, I remember dragging two bags from the train to the hotel three years ago, and I'm glad I didn't have to repeat that.