And Here We Go.

Goodbye wasn't as hard as I had anticipated. At the time it hadn't sunk in that it was the goodbye. My mom, my sister and I left the house at about 8:30 and grabbed pumpkin spice lattes from the airport Starbucks, met up with one of my closest friends and waited for the inevitable. Time moves in strange ways when you're hesitantly excited. We hugged, we laughed, and then I watched everyone disappear behind a window as I rode the tram away from familiarity.  I didn't have to wait very long to board for New York and the flight was entirely uneventful, until we touched down. While waiting out on the tarmac the sun, still beating summer onto the city, caught the colors of the clothes of my fellow passengers and inadvertently threw streaks of blue and red up on the white walls reminding me that, in case I had forgotten, Paris came next. I didn't get to see the skyline save for a glimpse I caught while taking the train between terminals and I didnt get to grab another pumpkin spice latte after stumbling my way through security and to the next gate. My time at JFK flew by and left me very little time to do any of the last minute things I wanted to do. If I were a better writer I could probably describe the feeling of seeing your country fade away beneath the clouds. It's weird, but I could probably get used to the rush. French air line food tastes really good when you haven't eaten anything for roughly 12 hours, and coffee smells incredible when you're rushing away from everything you know at a land speed of 800mph. Sunsets at 39000 ft. are pretty spectacular and when your over the Atlantic stars are a lot easier to see. Paris is six hours ahead of Tampa, meaning that my 5:30 arrival time felt more like 11:30 and I couldn't sleep at all. I watched the The Office in French while I tried to will my body into being tired and to drown out the sounds of the baby a few rows up that seemed to cry every 47 minutes. They pointed the plane towards the second star and flew straight into morning. Trying to navigate through security can be tricky, trying to navigate through security in French is very tricky. I tried to use all of the speaking around me to summon incredible French language abilities but after a 7 hour flight that just won't work. Nevertheless I navigated my way up and down escalators and past several closed coffee stands to the bus stop to catch the tram that would take me to a tiny plane. I decided that I would sleep on the 1 and a half hour flight from Paris to Edinburgh but adrenaline began pumping and the little old French woman next to me wouldn't stop coughing in a very high pitched way. We passed over a rocky shore, a field of sheep, an old castle like church and I had arrived. After I grabbed my bags from the carousel and exchanged my cash the fact that I had been awake for nearly 24 hours caught up with me. I wandered back and fourth through baggage claim trying to figure out how to get out before asking a very gruff security officer how to escape. I found a small table in the airport coffee shop and listened to the people around me carrying on normal conversations as my life got flip-turned upside-down. Getting a cab was shockingly simple and I found out I had been mispronouncing the name of the campus I had to go to. My cabbie was friendly with a strong accent and carried my bag up the stairs to the building where I needed to check in. Serendipity had me waiting in line next to girl who lived in the same block of flats as me and we shared a cab to our new homes. Unpacking was interrupted by an impromptu nap which was followed by Netflix and Skype sessions with home. Luck bestowed upon me some very friendly flatmates and a gorgeous view of Arthur's Seat and of the city surrounding me to counteract the extreme jetlag. My all-American flatmates and I visited the next door tavern, which just so happened to be older than our country, to grab some fish and chips and conversation before returning to our rooms to finally get some well deserved sleep. So much has already happened since i arrived and I have so much more to look forward to. My adventure has officially begun. 

Musical accomptment for my entries can be found here:  

http://www.thisismyjam.com/combsoftheyard/_6ofjenc 

That's pretty cool, right?