We’re home! We left Canada at around 11am on Sunday and just arrived in South Africa about an hour ago. There was a medical emergency on our first flight and we missed our connection in Amsterdam by about 15 minutes. If you’ve ever been to the Amsterdam airport, I’m sure you know how large it is. We basically had to run from one end to the other. When we started running our gate was just closing, but when we arrived the plane had just started to pull away from the terminal. The next flight to Johannesburg was the following morning (24 hours later), so we hopped on a plane to Paris, and got on the 7:10pm to Johannesburg from there. We considered visiting the Eiffel Tower during our layover, but we only had 4 hours to spare and didn’t want to risk missing another connection. I did see the Eiffel Tower from the plane, though!

I am never flying through Paris again. The airport was beautiful, but the security was insane. They asked me to remove my bandana, and I refused. I have trichotillomania and would rather jump off a bridge than go prancing around the airport with my bald spot in full view of hundreds of people. They let me through, but had me remove my shoes and patted me down a little more than was necessary. Don’t bother buying food at the Paris airport, either. A tiny slice of pizza was 7 euros, a small styrofoam cup of soup was 5 euros and a 350ml bottle of water was almost 4 euros. I purchased an hour of internet time while we were there, and only managed to use five minutes of it before my laptop battery unexpectedly died.

I am so unbelievably exhausted. I haven’t slept since 8am on Sunday. To make matters worse, the airport made a mistake and didn’t send our luggage. It’s still sitting in Amsterdam. Good thing I always bring a carry-on and stuff it full of clothes. This was the longest flight of my life and the only thing that kept me from jumping off the plane was my bottle of Clonazepam. There are a few items I must have on my at all times when I fly: clonazepam (to keep me from jumping off the plane), advil (for migraines and muscular pain, which I get frequently), and water (not having 24/7 access to water makes my mouth extremely dry, which in turn makes me anxious).

We have to go grocery shopping after we sleep, which I am so not looking forward to. I don’t feel like doing a thing today.