Guest Blog: Emily Sims

I am thrilled to introduce my second guest blogger, Emily Sims. Emily and I have been friends for a few years now. We ran a half marathon together in St. Louis, MO and we now work together on Travelated. She is an awesome writer and spins some lovely words in her blog Check, Please. Emily wrote a post about her arrival to France, where she lived for 2 months during college. I think it fits in nicely here on my blog about being away from home. Actually, she and I had pretty similar breakdowns (see my first entry for those messy details). I wrote a guest post for her as well.

You Can’t Go Until You Actually Leave

In the 24 hours since I’d left home, nothing had gone according to plan. I expected to die on the plane, I didn’t; I expected arrive in the town from Beauty and the Beast, I didn’t; I expected not to break down less than one day after leaving home, I did.

Boarding that plane to France was, at that point in my life, one of the most difficult things I had ever done. My parents and younger sister took me to the airport in St. Louis and accompanied me to the A gate security line. My dad started waving when he was about two feet away from me, and didn’t stop until I was through security. That’s just how my dad is.

I managed not to start crying until plane actually started moving. This was truly an accomplishment—at 21 years old, I was a bit of an emotional wreck. I tried to keep telling myself that I was a grown up now and this is what grownups do, but I kept crying. Two months is a long stretch, and the prospect of being gone that long with zero chance of seeing your family is very, very hard.  College is different. If you start to get homesick, you drive home the next weekend. There would be no driving home from France.

It also didn't help my mental state that I was fairly convinced that I was going to die.  There were too many plane rides and connections; surely one of them would have a mechanical failure and I’d die in a fiery explosion in the middle of Kentucky. Or something.

I had to catch a connecting Air France flight in Atlanta. After arriving in the Atlanta airport, I headed for the correct gate just in time to board.  I walked down the skywalk and saw a stunningly beautiful flight attendant at the door of the plane. “Bienvenue,” she said to me, stepping aside to let me pass. Her eyes raked over my face, my clothes in a split second.

I had taken great care in selecting my outfit for the trip, and I thought I looked Paris chic, when in truth in my short-sleeved black sweater, tea length gray sweat-skirt and Wal-Mart clearance aisle flip-flops, I looked like nothing more than homegrown Midwestern shit. One glance from the Parisian flight attendant, her dark hair coiffed perfectly in the most rigid of buns, her blue belt cinching her waist even smaller than it already was, her beautifully arched eyebrows arching even higher at the sight of me, and I knew that nothing about me, my scraggly dark blonde hair or pale face, was going to cut it in the streets of France.   

Oh well.

I arrived in France without any explosions or even any turbulence. In baggage claim, I nearly cried at the sight of my hunter green American Tourister, which I affectionately referred to as Green Monster, spinning toward me on the smooth silver of the baggage carousel. It was quite the reunion, wayward girl and suitcase.

Dragging Green Monster behind me through the Marseille airport, breathing hard and hungry, I tried to force my brain to remember that it understood French. Signs were everywhere, but in my confused, sweaty, and desperate state I couldn’t read even the easiest of words. I stopped walking and stared at the signs all around me, feeling overwhelmed and dizzy and ready to quit before I had even begun. People swarmed in front of me, beside me, all around me. I couldn’t understand, I just couldn’t understand anything quickly enough.

Breathe, I told myself. I closed my eyes. 

When I opened them, my brain remembered that it spoke French. I calmly looked around me and saw an information desk to my right. Green Monster and I clunked on over.

“Excusez-moi, madame?” I said.

“Oui?” asked the beautiful young woman at the desk. Her thick brown hair curled gently against her shoulders, her perfect teeth smiled up at me. Her name tag, perfectly pinned to her lapel, parallel to both ceiling and floor, informed me of her name: Annette. With barely a flick of her chestnut eyes, Annette took in my disheveled hair, flushed cheeks, and dingy clothes. Her smile faltered, but to her credit, she managed to hold on to it long enough to assist me.

“Where is—I mean—Ou est…le…le bus pour Aix-en-Provence?” I managed to sputter.

Annette stared at me like I was a freaking idiot and pointed to her right, out the door. I followed her arm and saw a sign with a large picture of a bus just above double doors that lead outside. Less than 15 minutes on the ground and already the French thought I was stupid.

Classic. 

The bus ride took about half an hour, and I started to freak out a little when we got to Aix.  I really had expected Aix to be a small provincial town; I was thinking Disney style French village like Beauty and the Beast, but it's not—Aix is a city.  It's not Paris, but it's still a city, and there were more people than I had expected. As we wound our way through town, I grew more and more intimidated and scared. Where were Belle and Gaston?

When finally I arrived at my hotel, I locked myself in my room and the full-on mental breakdown that I needed. I was in France and completely, utterly alone.

After a good cry and a shower, I dressed in clean clothes. I wrote in my journal for two hours. I straightened my shoulders. And then I packed a little purse, donned my flip flops like a beauty queen, and opened the door. 

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I, personally, am glad she did not run into Gaston. We all love Belle but now that we are adults does this douche really look all that appealing?