BACK TO FLORIDA

Thursday, May 07, 2009
Woke up this morning at 5 AM after sleeping soundly for the past seven hours. Guess I am getting anxious to get started on our trip home. Last night after checking into our hotel we made a trip, without any luggage, on the shuttle to the airport…..this way we would know just how to get to the correct American Airlines gate in the morning.

Coming back to our hotel we took showers, washed our hair etc and repacked our suitcases trying to find things that we could leave behind to make more room in our cases so we could get everything into one big suitcase to check and one small case, which would count as our purse and a backpack to hold our laptops and items that we thought we might need on the plane. Meanwhile the room kept getting colder and colder…. we could not get the radiators to work and then neither could the maintenance man… eventually we ended up moving to another room. With free internet we caught up on our computers before heading to bed…..yes, dinner was in our rooms…. Our last cans of tuna and vegetables, that we have been eating several times a week, with the last of our loaf of real French bread and hot water tea. Thought of getting some cards in but we were both sleepy so to bed we went with our novels that we had traded for back in Paris.

By 6:30 AM we were off to the airport. Even though it was busy we had no problems getting checked in and through security. Soon it was time to board our plane for home. We both have aisle seats across from each other, makes it nice that we don’t have to ask people to move when we need to get up. I have a nice young fellow next to me but Martha is lucky and has an empty seat next to her. She seems very tired and, now that we have had our evening meal, is trying to get some sleep…..I have been watching the movie “Marley & Me” which I have seen before but still am enjoying it while typing on my computer and doing some picture deleting… I have about 5,000 pictures and I am going to have a hard time figuring out what to print to include with my journals in a notebook that I will be able to pull out and read from time to time during the last years of my life. Remembering this special time-shared with my twin. Martha will be flying on to California from Miami and I will go on to Tampa.

Am sure it will be a year or so before we have a chance to see each other again… we do stay in touch on a regular basis by phone and emails. This has been the most time that we have spent together since we were in high school some 54 years ago in Indiana.

Well in about seven hours we should be landing in the USA so think I’ll try snooze some myself. I hope that you have enjoyed following our blogs while we have been traveling these past 3 months. I have enjoyed doing the blogs and maybe will have to keep on doing this as we, my husband and I, will we doing some traveling up north this summer. Will try to post this in Miami if we find the internet while waiting for our next flights.

No luck with internet in Miami but I am glad because now I can add a post note. I arrived in Tampa about 7 PM, my husband Philip was there to pick me up…... he had just returned yesterday from a Guitar Convention in Hawaii so he also was suffering from jet lag. Driving into the park where our home is located, I was so surprised to see a big “Welcome Home Mary” sign with Tony the Tiger posted at the first intersection. The day before we left, back in February, my friend Shirley had taken a picture of Martha and I with Tony the Tiger (See the picture to understand) so it was great to have him welcome me home. Phil had also made another sign and strung up yellow streamers at our home. I felt like I was truly missed, especially after the welcome I got at Coffee Hour this morning (Saturday). It’s good to be home but I am still on “Paris Time” and am having problems functioning….. but hopefully by Monday I should have it all together and be back in tune with the rest of Florida.