When in Paris Series Pt. 1
Hey, you guys how have you all been lately? I know it’s been a while since you have last heard from me. I promise that I wasn’t neglecting you all, I just happened to be out of the country at the time and I left my laptop at home. Yes, I left the laptop at home. It may not sound like me but in my head, I didn’t think I would have the time to be able to just sit down and write. Plus, it seems that I was correct with my interpretation. If you all recall the article, I posted named “Oh the Places I’ll Go,” I talked to you all about the trip to Paris I was taking with the Royal House of LaBeija. There are so many stories that I want to tell you about my trip there so, I figure I would break it up into a 3-part series. Well now that you all know the plan, let’s go ahead and dive right into the juicy stuff.
This time no one came with me to the airport to drop me off and that was a first for me. I have always had someone at the airport with me whether it was my mom or my basketball team. To be completely honest I was a little nervous to be going to the airport by myself especially with everything that has been happening lately with the ride share apps, and sex trafficking. I left the country on December 1st, but I didn’t arrive in Paris until the 2nd. I flew out of IAD, in Dulles, VA. I also flew on an airline that I’ve never flown on before, let alone heard of until I booked my flight. The airline was called Icelandair, which allowed me to layover in Iceland for a few hours before my connecting flight to Paris. Now this airplane ride out of IAD was one for the books, I can tell you that.
As I boarded my flight and found my row, I was happy to realize that this airline provided blankets and pillows to us for the flight; even though I was prepared to use my coat. Once the boarding was done, I realized that I had ended up with an entire row to myself. As a tall woman who loves to sit by the window this was a dream come true especially since I wasn’t in the exit seat row; the leg room in the other rows is drastically smaller. If you know me you know that I love the take-off, it makes me feel like I’m flying especially with the view from the window the world just looks so small beneath you. As we made it above the clouds that’s when it all started.
This was the most turbulence that I have ever felt in all of my years of flying. Keep in mind as an athlete we had to travel a lot by airplane, but this was only my second time flying internationally. At that point my nerves started to make me feel anxious because when you’re in the sky you have little control over what nature does. You are literally being controlled by nature and me not being able to control the outcome made me anxious. The turbulence ended up getting so bad that we were told to put back on our seat belts and the even the flight attendants sat down. One even asked me if it was okay for her to sit in my row, at that point I realized that this was serious. After about 40 minuets of flying through what felt like a storm the ride started to become a little smoother.
It was a 6-hour flight to Iceland where I would take a connecting flight straight to Paris. My flight ended up landing in Iceland at the same time my second fight was boarding. I was a little scared that I wouldn’t make my second flight. One main reason was that this airport was foreign to me, so I didn’t know if it was going to be a huge one, and to my surprise we had to go through customs as well. I was thankful that there was no line in customs which made it easier for me to get to my boarding gate. Thankfully they had just started to board when I arrived at the gate. Plus, we had to ride a shuttle on the tarmac to get to our airplane; I had to do something similar when I flew to Barcelona, Spain.
After I boarded this flight, I unfortunately didn’t get the row to myself, but I did end up with another window seat, so I was happy about that. It was so dark outside at that time that you couldn’t see anything except the little bit of snow that was on the tarmac and the lights from the neighboring towns. Thankfully this connecting flight was only going to be three hours. As we started to take off the view outside became darker and darker. There was nothing that I could see out of the window as we got higher into the sky the lights started to fade until they were completely gone, and it was nothing but the endless dark skies.
As the hours started to pass and we started to fly over the United Kingdom you could see the sun start peaking from behind the clouds. In all of my life I find that to be the most beautiful sight. The clouds looked like an endless land covered with snow, and it makes you want to reach out and touch it. By the time we had finished flying over the UK the sun was at its peak. Compared to my flight out of the states this flight went a lot smoother. Next thing I know it was time for us to land. I had officially made it to Paris, France.
And now the real adventure begins…
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