Up, Up and Away …
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My first time traveling abroad also happened to be my first time riding in an airplane.
I hate to be morbid, but as I said goodbye to my family before I headed to the airport, I legitimately hugged them like I might never see them again.
As a naturally anxious person, it is safe to say I was more than a little nervous to travel internationally for the first time, especially without any of my family.
To make an already nerve-wracking situation even more dramatic, our connecting flight to Newark, NJ, was pushed back multiple times, resulting in a six-hour delay.
Ultimately, I didn’t mind, though.
Paris, France, was waiting for us on the other side of all this travel.
Once we finally made it on the small Embraer 175 that would transport us on the first leg of our journey, from St. Louis to Newark, I was bubbling with anticipation.
I paid close attention to the nice flight attendant’s spiel, but once she finished and we were ready for takeoff, my attention was fixed solely on the window to my left.
I am not sure what I expected takeoff to be like, exactly, but it was much less intense than I had prepared for, which I greatly appreciated.
I spent the entirety of the 2 ½-hour long connecting flight with my gaze transfixed out the window, watching in wonder as I was up among the clouds as the sun set.
I’ll never forget flying over New York City.
By then, the sun had been long gone, but as I looked down below, the sky was illuminated with what seemed like no fewer than a million tiny lights.
From thousands of feet in the air, an entire city that was normally so vast and overwhelming looked almost miniature beneath me.
Each tiny light represented a home, a business, a person going about a life I knew nothing about.
I reflected on the smallness of our individual journeys and marveled at the incomprehensible number of stories inevitably playing out in people’s lives across the city.
It was a surreal moment.
As the plane began its descent, there was a bit of turbulence but not a traumatizing amount.
And just like that, we were safely on the ground, but it was no peaceful transition.
My classmates and I disembarked the plane and then power walked our way through the Newark Liberty International Airport so fast that we were practically sprinting.
We joked that we were living our own version of the McCallister family’s mad dash through the airport in “Home Alone,” trying to make it to our next flight on time.
Miraculously, our whole group of 24 students and 5 chaperones made it to the correct gate and got checked in with just a couple of minutes to spare.
Then, it was time to (attempt to) settle in for the eight-hour ride that was ahead of me.
Although there was not as much wonder in my eyes on this leg of the journey because I was in the middle seat, sandwiched between two large, French-speaking men, I was still buzzing with excitement.
Once I got off that plane, I would be in Paris, France!
I was going to experience something I had been dreaming about since I was a little girl: going up in the Eiffel Tower.
Having that to look forward to would make pretty much anything tolerable, in my opinion.
And boy, was it worth it!
After the nerves, the six-hour delay, the mad dash through Newark and eight hours squeezed into a middle seat, I had finally made it.
I was in Paris.
Standing in the top of the Eiffel Tower, I couldn’t help but think about the girl who had hugged her family goodbye just hours before, wondering if she was going to be able to handle this. The girl who had never been on an airplane, let alone traveled to another country without her family.
And yet, there I was.
Sometimes the things that scare us the most are the very things that give us the stories we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.
I had no idea then just how many memories, adventures and little moments were waiting for me on the other side of that first flight. But as I stood there looking down at the Paris cityscape, I knew one thing for certain:
I was so glad I got on the plane. Overcoming our initial fears can lead to great adventures. This was certainly the case for me.
