Date: May 20th, 2023
Location: Home!
(This is going to be a pretty short entry since majority of today was spent on a plane but here’s my last day in Europe!)
Woke up feeling still pretty sick so unfortunately, I knew I had to take it easy once more. I was a little upset about that because I had been resting my voice a lot and taking medication so I hoped I was going to feel better today. Especially since I wanted to try to walk to a nearby market and maybe do some last minute shopping. But ir was probably for the best considering I had no more cash left and I needed to make sure I wasn’t going to go over my luggage weight requirement. And so, I spent the morning just resting after I got some breakfast from the hotel. I did get to walk around the area the hotel was in for a while. I even got to check out this four story mall that was in the building right next to us. While it wasn’t the biggest I’ve ever seen, it had pretty much all the necessities and there was a walk way to make it cross over a street so I thought it was cool.
But after a while of just sitting around and resting, it was time for everyone who was still left to go to the airport. All of the Undergrads and some of the Grad students were on the same flight so we had a bus come and pick us up before taking us to the airport. It was a pretty easy ride there though going through the airport check-in was a bit annoying. It seemed they tried to automate the entire process. But it was kind of impossible to do anything without having a worker come help us. Oh well.
After that, we all went through security, passport control, and got to our gate. I made sure to grab some lunch before the plane ride since it was going to be a good 9 or so hours. And I made sure to grab some last minute gifts- including a bunch of candy from Vienna. I’ve wanted to get chocolate from every place I’ve been but I didn’t want to risk it melting so I only bought candy from Vienna. But I was able to pick up some chocolate, bon bons, and Haribo gummy bears. Haribo is really a german brand but there were some good looking flavors here so I figured picking up some gummy bears from the neighboring country would be nice!
Eventually, it was time to board the plane and go home. We were flying Austrian Airlines again so it was pretty comfortable flight. I had an aisle seat in the middle row but I was able to sleep and function just fine. I watched a couple of movies, slept a while, listened to music, and just waited until we finally arrived.
Once we landed back in the US, I was a little nervous that everything was going to take a while. My dad had traveled a while to come meet me at the airport to help me get home since it was so late and I didn’t want going through customs to take hours. We were flying into JFK too so I figured that luck wouldn’t be on our side and we were going to take forever to get through the line. But as it turns out, it was only our plane going through customs! So it was a really, really smooth ride. Once we all went through customs, we all picked up our bags, and said our goodbyes. It was kind of sad seeing everyone part ways for the last time but I was really happy to be back in the US. But I know I’m going to cherish these memories for a long time.
After I passed through the gates, I met up with my dad and we started our long journey back to my house. We had to take multiple trains and a bus and it was long (and complicated) couple of hours making it through New York public transportation. I definitely started to miss Europe’s way of doing things while going through all that. Though eventually, my dad and I were able to make it to our last train stop around 2am and he drove us home. It was a long, long journey but I’m very glad to be back home with my family!
And that should be it for my trip! Thank you so much for tuning in! (And for those of you who were curious, I went to a clinic a couple hours later. It turns out I had really, really, really bad seasonal allergies while on the trip!) Either way, I hope you all enjoyed reading about my adventures! Until next time!
- DD
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