Excitement and Anxiety

Well, today is the day!  Today we leave for Paris.  We will fly out of Ottawa on a quick flight to Montreal, then we have a couple hours of layover and we leave Montreal around 8 pm.  With the time difference, we arrive in Paris at 8:45 am.  I have been trying to get up early the last couple of days to start to adjust to the time change.  Last night, I didn't sleep well at all and had some horrible dreams so although my alarm was set for 4 am, I was up at 3 am.  Ick! 

I am so excited for this trip but at the same time I am super anxious.  It is my first long flight since I went to Africa with my dad when I was 15...that's a long time between Transatlantic flights.  It will be my first time in Europe.  It will be Tiana's first flight since she went to Australia.  It will be Tabitha's first long flight and actually it will be Tabitha's first time off of the North American continent.  It will be a long, boring, night flight and I am hoping the 3 of us will be able to sleep some otherwise it will be teenage boredom hell.  We get in on Tuesday and then Wil comes in on Wednesday.  So from Tuesday until Wednesday night, I am on my own in Paris with 2 teens and none of us speak French.  I know that most of them will speak English but I prefer to at least try to speak the native language but this time that won't happen.  I guess in the future I need to stick with Spanish speaking countries if I am on my own.  Although, hopefully I won't be traveling on my own for much longer.  Oh well, hopefully we will be able to get groceries and figure enough out to enjoy ourselves until our resident French speaker comes in.  Maybe we will just lay around and sleep for 2 days, that certainly sounds fantastic to me.  Actually it sounds like a dream to me...lay in bed, not have to get up for animals or school or work or anything....sigh, maybe Paris will be heaven.  Now if I can convince Wil to do all the cooking and cleaning...lol.  I am so excited to see him but at the same time it is kind of weird to think of being together.  It has been 7 months but it seems like much longer. 

Last night on  the Amazing Race they had to memorize this poem by Hans Christian Anderson:
"To move, to breath, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote: To travel is to live."

I love this poem and I really feel it deep within my core.  If finances it, I would travel much more but I have been blessed to be able to travel as much as I have. 

This next week, we will live!

Love you all and talk to you on the other side of the trip.